JUST IN: Russia Detains Wall Street Journal Reporter, Accusing Him of Espionage
Russian authorities announced Thursday they had detained an American journalist, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent based in Moscow, accusing him of espionage.
The New York Times reports:
The Federal Security Service, known by its Russian acronym F.S.B., said in a statement about Mr. Gershkovich that “on the instructions of the United States, he was collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constitute a state secret.” The F.S.B. is a successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B.
Mr. Gershkovich was detained in Yekaterinburg, a city about 900 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains, according to Russian state-run news outlets, which reported the F.S.B. statement.
The Wall Street Journal released the following statement: “The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
Gershkovich co-authored a report published Wednesday titled “Russia’s Economy is Starting to Come Undone,” which paints a bleak picture of the effects of the Ukrainian incursion led by President Vladimir Putin. Written with Georgi Katnchev, the article reports:
As the war continues into its second year and Western sanctions bite harder, Russia’s government revenue is being squeezed and its economy has shifted to a lower-growth trajectory, likely for the long term.
The country’s biggest exports, gas and oil, have lost major customers. Government finances are strained. The ruble is down over 20% since November against the dollar. The labor force has shrunk as young people are sent to the front or flee the country over fears of being drafted. Uncertainty has curbed business investment.
“Russia’s economy is entering a long-term regression,” predicted Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian Central Bank official who left the country shortly after the invasion.
FSB has released the following statement: “The illegal activities of the correspondent of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, US citizen Evan Gershkovich, born in 1991…suspected of espionage in the interests of the American government, have been suppressed.”
Gershkovich’s WSJ bio reads he “is a reporter covering Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. He was previously a reporter for Agence France-Presse and the Moscow Times and a news assistant at the New York Times.”
Tensions between the United States and Russia are high as the US offers significant military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian’s military incursion.
Watch the breaking news report above via CNN.
