Russia extends detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by 3 months

A Russian court on Tuesday extended by three months the pre-trial detention of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter arrested almost a year ago on suspicion of espionage while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg.

The hearing was closed to the media but the Moscow court service published photographs and a brief video showing Gershkovich standing in a glass box in court. He appeared relaxed and was smiling in some of the pictures.

US ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy demanded that Russia free Gershkovich and said the Kremlin was using him and other American citizens as pawns.

“This verdict to further prolong Evan’s detention feels particularly painful, as this week marks one year since Evan was arrested and wrongfully detained in Yekaterinburg simply for doing his job as a journalist,” Tracy said.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Gershkovich had been trying to obtain military secrets. He has now spent almost a year at Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison, which is closely associated with the FSB, and his detention has been extended to June 30.

Western diplomats say Russia aims to build up a store of arrested US citizens who could be swapped for Russians detained in the West.

US envoy to Russia visits detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich

Among the detained Americans is Paul Whelan, an ex-Marine arrested in Moscow in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison on spying charges in 2020.

“Evan’s case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends, as the Kremlin is also doing in the case of Paul Whelan,” Tracy said.

Both Gershkovich and Whelan have been designated by the US State Department as “wrongfully detained”, meaning that Washington considers the charges against them bogus and is committed to working for their release.

Putin said on March 17 that he had approved the idea of exchanging Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny shortly before his death in a Siberian prison colony on February 16.

Gershkovich was part of the negotiation that would have included Navalny, according to two sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

His arrest shocked many Western news organisations and there are now hardly any US reporters in Russia.