Evan Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison after allegedly ‘collecting classified information’
Russia’s top security agency has said a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich had been detained in the Ural Mountains city of Ekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.
The security service alleged that Gershkovich “was collecting classified information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex”.
The FSB did not say when the arrest took place. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage.
Gershkovich is the first reporter for a US news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the cold war. His arrest comes amid bitter tensions between Moscow and Washington DC over the fighting in Ukraine.
The FSB alleged that Gershkovich “was acting on the US orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state secret”.
Gershkovich covers Russia and Ukraine as a correspondent in the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau. The FSB noted that he had accreditation from the Russian foreign ministry to work as a journalist.
His latest report from Moscow, published earlier this week, focused on the Russian economy’s slowdown amid western sanctions imposed when Russian troops entered Ukraine last year.
Source: The Guardian
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