The hearing of the espionage case of American journalist in Russia will be held in a closed room
The Russian espionage trial against detained Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovich will take place behind closed doors. Ivan Gershkovich denies charges of collecting secret information for the US CIA.
The espionage trial against Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovich, detained in Russia, will be held behind closed doors. Ivan Gershkovich has denied charges of collecting secret information for the US CIA. The trial court said this information on Monday.
Gershkovich, 32, was detained by the Federal Security Service at a steak house in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg, 1,400 km (900 miles) east of Moscow, on March 29, 2023, on charges of espionage, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Gershkovitch is the first American journalist to be detained in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War ended more than three decades ago. Gershkovitch has denied the charges. The Journal says Gershkovitch was doing her job and has denied that she was a spy.
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Gershkovitch was trying to collect secrets about Uralvagonzavod (a Russian defense enterprise that is one of the world’s largest battle tank producers) for the CIA.
“The process will take place behind closed doors,” the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg said.
“According to investigating authorities, American journalist Gershkovich from The Wall Street Journal, on instructions from the CIA, collected secret information in March 2023 in the Sverdlovsk region about the activities of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod, a defense enterprise for the production and repair of military equipment.”
The first hearing is scheduled for June 26, the court said.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the US was concerned that the trial would be conducted behind closed doors.
“We are concerned about this. We will try to attend the hearing – don’t know if it will be possible or not,” he said.
The White House has called the allegations “ridiculous” and President Joe Biden has said Gershkovic’s detention was “completely illegal.”
Russia said Gershkovitch was caught “red-handed.” President Vladimir Putin has said Washington has been approached about a possible swap for Gershkovitch but that such talks should be kept away from the media.
The Journal said Gershkovitch was on a reporting assignment when he was detained and that his fate shows the dangers faced by journalists reporting on the front lines of major global news. It has called for his release.
“This latest development means a sham lawsuit is imminent. We hope all parties will work to bring Ivan back home. Time is precious,” the Journal said.
“The Russian regime’s smearing of Ivan is abhorrent and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime and Ivan’s case is an attack on the free press.”
Swap funds?
Gershkovitch’s arrest highlights how much the Ukraine war has soured relations between Russia and the West, a departure from hopes for friendship after the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
There are now virtually no American journalists in Russia. US diplomats say Gershkovitch was not a spy and was detained by Russia’s FSB to create a pool of arrested US citizens who could later be swapped with Russian citizens detained in the West.
The Americans detained include Paul Whelan, a former Marine who was arrested in Moscow in 2018 and sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison for espionage.
Putin suggested in February that Gershkovich could be replaced by Vadim Krasikov, convicted of killing a Chechen dissident in Berlin in 2019, though he did not name Krasikov.
Putin said in March that he had agreed to the idea of a possible swap, days before opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison on February 16 under unclear circumstances.
Born to Soviet immigrants and raised in New Jersey, Gershkovitch, a fluent Russian speaker, moved to Moscow in late 2017 to join the English-language newspaper Moscow Times and later worked for the French news agency Agence France-Presse.
It was unclear whether Gershkovitch was planning to report on the Nizhny Tagil-based Uralvagonzavod on his reporting trip to the Urals.
The enterprise is located in the heart of the Urals region, where Russia carries out some of its most secret weapons production and research. It is part of Rostec, Russia’s giant defense corporation run by Putin’s ally Sergei Chemezov.
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