Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter, was arrested in Russia on espionage charges, Russia’s top security agency said on Thursday, according to Al-Jazeera.
WSJ in a statement said, “The Wall Street Journal is deeply concerned for the safety of Gershkovich.” The Federal Security Service (FSB), top KGB successor agency, said that the WSJ reporter was detained from the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while he allegedly tried to obtain classified information.
In a statement, FSB said, “Gershkovich acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex,” read a WSJ report.
The FSB has also alleged that Gershkovich “was collecting classified information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret,” according to Al-Jazeera.
According to local media, he was detained while covering the war in Ukraine and the Wagner mercenary group.
The date of arrest was not mentioned in the statement, but if convicted of espionage, Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison. According to Al-Jazeera, he is the first journalist from an American news organisation to be detained in Russia on suspicion of espionage since the Cold War, and his detention comes at a time of intense international concern due to the conflict in Ukraine.
Gershkovich covers Russia and Ukraine and has been accredited as a journalist by the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.
His most recent assessment, released last week, focused on the Russian economy’s stagnation in the face of Western sanctions.
Gershkovich, 31, was hired by the Wall Street Journal after previously working for AFP in Moscow. According to his Wall Street Journal bio, he previously worked as a reporter for The Moscow Times.
Gershkovich speaks Russian because his parents are from the Soviet Union but now live in the United States, according to Al-Jazeera.
