Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia over espionage charges – National | 24CA News
Russia’s prime safety company has arrested an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal on espionage expenses, the primary time a U.S. correspondent was put behind bars on spying accusations because the Cold War.
The Federal Security Service mentioned Thursday that Evan Gershkovich was detained within the Ural Mountains metropolis of Yekaterinburg whereas allegedly making an attempt to acquire labeled data.
The Wall Street Journal mentioned it “vehemently denies the allegations” and is looking for Gershkovich’s instant launch. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the paper mentioned.
The arrest comes amid bitter tensions between the West and Moscow over its struggle in Ukraine.
Gershkovich is the primary American reporter to be arrested on espionage expenses in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB. He was launched with out expenses 20 days later in a swap for an worker of the Soviet Union’s United Nations mission who was arrested by the FBI.
The FSB, which is the highest successor company to the Soviet-era KGB, alleged that Gershkovich “was acting on the U.S. orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.”
The company didn’t say when the arrest happened. Gershkovich may withstand 20 years in jail if convicted of espionage.
Gershkovich covers Russia, Ukraine and different ex-Soviet nations as a correspondent within the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.
The FSB famous that he had accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist, however Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned Gershkovich was utilizing his journalistic credentials as a canopy for “activities that have nothing to do with journalism.”
His final report from Moscow, printed earlier this week, targeted on the Russian financial system’s slowdown amid Western sanctions imposed when Russian troops invaded Ukraine final yr.
Gershkovich’s arrest follows a swap in December, wherein WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed after 10 months behind bars in change for Russian arms supplier Viktor Bout.
Another American, Paul Whelan, a Michigan company safety government, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage expenses that his household and the U.S. authorities have mentioned are baseless.
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