This is a worrying first. For Western journalists based in Russia, “the signal is new and not good”, warns a senior European diplomat in Moscow. The Russian security services (FSB) announced on the morning of Thursday 30 March the arrest “for spying for the benefit of the United States” by Evan Gershkovich, correspondent for the American newspaper Wall Street Journal. Accused of “to collect information on a company of the Russian military-industrial complex”, the journalist should be tried behind closed doors, as in any case for this crime punishable by ten to twenty years in prison.
No Western journalist had previously been prosecuted for this reason in Russia. “But he’s not the first famous Westerner to be caught red-handed,” quipped Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry. She assured that other “have used the status of ‘foreign correspondent’ for the purpose of covering their activities”. A message clearly addressed to the community of Western correspondents in Moscow, in shock at this arrest. At the time of his arrest, Evan Gershkovich, 31, an American of Russian origin and perfectly Russian-speaking, was on assignment in the Urals. He had already been there last month. While the FSB claims, without giving details, to have thwarted its “illegal activity” the Wall Street Journal a “vehemently refuted” these allegations. And ask “immediate release” of sound “reliable and conscientious journalist ».
The presence of FSB services
Since the start of the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, the working conditions of journalists from countries that imposed sanctions on Moscow have gradually deteriorated. Accreditations, which lasted one year in the past, are only renewed every three months. And, regularly, especially in the regions, the FSB services make their presence felt to monitor the reports. But, far from the growing crackdown on independent Russian journalists, foreign correspondents continue to work freely. “We have understood that the coverage made from Moscow is more objective than that made from Paris or other Western newsrooms,” recently recognized at The cross a source at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Evan Gershkovich joins the list of Americans already detained in Russia, de facto “hostages” for possible exchanges of prisoners between Moscow and Washington. Among them: Paul Whelan, a former soldier serving a sixteen-year sentence for ” spying “ in a case that Washington considers fabricated, and Marc Fogel, a former diplomat sentenced to fourteen years in prison for cannabis trafficking. The latest exchange between Moscow and Washington took place in December 2022, when Russia released American basketball player Brittney Griner, detained for ” drug traffic “in exchange for the release of arms dealer Viktor Bout, imprisoned in the United States.
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