This past Friday, a court in Moscow extended the pretrial detention of an American reporter who works for The Wall Street Journal.
Evan Gershkovich, 32, is awaiting a hearing for an espionage charge that he, his newspaper, and the U.S. government steadfastly deny.
Gershkovich was arrested last March during a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, where he was ordered to remain in prison until at least March 30th, according to a statement by the news service of the Moscow court system.
This is the fourth time that Mr. Gershkovich’s detention has been extended, meaning that he is expected to spend at least one more year in Russian custody.
“The grounds for Evan’s detention are baseless,” the American Embassy in Moscow said in a social media post. “We continue to call for Evan’s immediate release.” In a public statement, the embassy claimed that its representatives were present at the hearing on Friday when Gershkovich’s detention was extended.
Russian authorities have proposed the they would be open to a prisoner swap, but only after a verdict is reached in the case. Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said that Washington already made a “substantial” offer to do a swap for Mr. Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American prisoner being held in detention, in December, but Moscow rejected it.
Mr. Gershkovich was the first American journalist to be arrested on an espionage charge since the end of the Cold War, which emphasizes the drastic state of relations between Moscow and Washington that has been brought to a head since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This conflict has intensified the dynamic between Russia and the U.S. as the American government and press has attempted to report the realities of the brutal war being waged by Russia and provide support for Ukraine.
Russian lawyers that have worked on cases similar to Mr. Gershkovich’s said that it usually takes up to one and half years for proceedings like these to reach trial, which can then take up to another six months to reach a verdict. So far, Russian investigators have shown zero evidence to support the espionage charge being made against the American journalist.
If convicted, Mr. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in a Russian penal colony.
