Moscow — Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich will remain jailed in Russia on espionage charges until at least the end of June, after a Moscow court on Tuesday rejected his appeal seeking to end his pretrial detention. The 32-year-old U.S. citizen was detained in late March 2023 while on a reporting trip and has spent more than a year in prison, with authorities routinely prolonging his stay behind bars and rejecting his appeals.
Last month, his pretrial detention was extended once again (until June 30) in a ruling that he and his lawyers later challenged. A Moscow appeals court rejected it on Tuesday.
The US State Department declared Gershkovich “unjustly detained” shortly after his arrest, and he is still awaiting trial on espionage charges, which the White House, his family and his employer insist are baseless but could still land him with a decades-long prison sentence.
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In the courtroom Tuesday, Gerhskovich seemed relaxed, at times laughing and chatting with members of his legal team.
His arrest in the city of Yekaterinburg worried journalists in Russia, where authorities have not detailed what evidence, if any, they have to support the espionage charges.
Analysts have noted that Moscow may be using imprisoned Americans as bargaining chips in rising tensions between the United States and Russia over President Vladimir. Putin’s course was in Ukraine.. At least two US citizens arrested in Russia in recent years, including WNBA star Brittney Griner – have been exchanged for Russians imprisoned in the US.
In December, the US State Department said it had made a significant offer to secure the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, which he said Moscow had rejected. Whelan has been imprisoned in Russia since 2018 and also declared unjustly detained by the United States government.
Officials did not describe the offer, although Russia is said to be seeking the release of Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in 2021 for the Berlin murder of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian. citizen of Chechen descent who had fought against Russian troops in Chechnya and later sought asylum in Germany.
President Biden committed at the end of March “continue working every day” to secure Gershkovich’s release.
“We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia’s egregious attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips,” Biden said in a statement that also mentioned Whelan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, when asked this year about Gershkovich’s release, appeared to refer to Krasikov when pointing to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for “liquidating a bandit” who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers during the separatist fighting in Chechnya.
Beyond that hint, Russian officials have remained silent about the talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly said that while “certain contacts” about the exchanges continue, “they must be carried out in absolute silence.”
Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow correspondent for US News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB.
Daniloff was released without charge 20 days later in a swap for an employee of the Soviet Union’s UN mission who was arrested by the FBI, also accused of espionage.