Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia on suspicion of ‘espionage’

By Sarah Dean and Anna Chernova, CNN

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of espionage, the first time a US journalist has been detained on accusations by Moscow of spying since the Cold War.

“The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has stopped the illegal activities of US citizen Evan Gershkovich, born in 1991, a correspondent of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal,” Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement Thursday.

The FSB said Gershkovich was detained in Yekaterinburg, on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, and claimed he was “trying to obtain secret information” relating to “the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”

The FSB said the reporter, who is accredited by Russia’s foreign ministry, was “acting on the instructions of the American side” and “trying to obtain secret information.”

In a statement, the Wall Street Journal said it “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,” the US newspaper said.

CNN has contacted the US State Department for comment.

Gershkovich covers Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, according to his biography on the Wall Street Journal’s website. He previously worked for news agency Agence France-Presse, the Moscow Times and the New York Times.

His arrest marks a significant escalation of Russia’s campaign against Western media.

In a move by the United States last week, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a Russian national who allegedly entered America under a fake identity and gathered intelligence ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

— Julia Horowitz and Niamh Kennedy contributed reporting.

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