Moscow: American journalist Ivan Gershkovitchwho has been in jail for more than a year Russia The trial on espionage charges will take place in Yekaterinburg, the Ural Mountains city where he was detained, authorities said on Thursday. According to Russia’s prosecutor general’s office, an indictment against the Wall Street Journal reporter has been finalized and his case has been filed in the Sverdlovsky Regional Court of the city, some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) east of Moscow.No information was given as to when the trial would begin.
The prosecutor general’s office said in a statement that Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “collecting secret information” about Uralvagonzavod, a factory in the Sverdlovsk region that produces and repairs military equipment, on orders from the CIA. The statement details the charges against him for the first time.
Gershkovitch was detained during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in March 2023 and accused of spying for the United States. The reporter, his employer and the US government denied the allegations and Washington declared him wrongly detained.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, arrested Gershkovich after alleging he was acting on US orders to collect state secrets, but provided no evidence to support the allegations.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the developments, saying “these allegations have absolutely no credibility” and that the US government would continue to work to bring Gershkovitch back.
“Ivan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” Miller said. “The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows they are false. He should be released immediately.”
The Biden administration has sought to negotiate his release, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap only after a verdict in his trial.
“Russia’s latest step toward a sham trial, while expected, is extremely disappointing and nothing short of outrageous,” Dow Jones Chief Executive Officer and Journal publisher Alamar Latour and Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.
He said the allegations against Gershkovitch were “false and baseless.”
“The Russian regime’s smearing of Ivan is disgusting, abhorrent, and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Ivan’s case is an attack on the free press,” the statement said. “We hoped to avoid this moment, and now we expect the U.S. government to redouble its efforts to secure Ivan’s release.”
Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s special presidential envoy who serves as the U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, said that although he had been hopeful about reaching an agreement to bring Gershkovitch back home before this point, the latest development “cannot slow or stop us.”
“Ultimately the point is this was not unexpected,” he said.
Uralvagonzavod, a state-owned tank and railroad car factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, became known as a base of support for the president in 2011-12. Vladimir Putin,
Plant foreman Igor Kholmanskih appeared on Putin’s annual phone-in program in December 2011 and denounced the mass protests taking place in Moscow at the time as a threat to “stability” and suggested that he and his colleagues travel to the Russian capital to help quell the unrest. A week later, Putin appointed Kholmanskih as his envoy to the region.
Putin has said he believes a deal can be reached to release Gershkovich, indicating he would be willing to replace him with a Russian citizen imprisoned in Germany, who could be Vadim Krasikov, serving a life sentence for the 2019 murder of a Georgian citizen of Chechen origin in Berlin.
Asked about Gershkovich last week, Putin said the United States was “taking energetic steps” to secure his release. He told international news agencies in St. Petersburg that any such release is decided “not through the mass media” but through a “prudent, sober and professional approach.”
“And these must obviously be decided on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, pointing to possible prisoner swaps.
If convicted, Gershkovitch could face up to 20 years in prison.
He was the first American Journalist Gershkovitch was the second man detained on espionage charges after Nicholas Daniloff at the height of the Cold War in 1986. Gershkovitch’s arrest stunned foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country had enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of expression after sending troops into Ukraine.
The son of Soviet immigrants who settled in New Jersey, Gershkovitch was fluent in Russian and moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Since his arrest, Gershkovitch has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, a notorious tsarist-era prison used during Joseph Stalin’s purges, when executions were carried out in its basement.
US Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who regularly visited Gershkovitch in prison and attended his court hearings, has described the charges against him as “fictional” and said that Russia is “using American citizens as pawns to advance political objectives.”
Russian authorities have detained a number of American citizens and other Western nationals since sending troops into Ukraine, which appears to give credence to this idea.
The prosecutor general’s office said in a statement that Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “collecting secret information” about Uralvagonzavod, a factory in the Sverdlovsk region that produces and repairs military equipment, on orders from the CIA. The statement details the charges against him for the first time.
Gershkovitch was detained during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in March 2023 and accused of spying for the United States. The reporter, his employer and the US government denied the allegations and Washington declared him wrongly detained.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, arrested Gershkovich after alleging he was acting on US orders to collect state secrets, but provided no evidence to support the allegations.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the developments, saying “these allegations have absolutely no credibility” and that the US government would continue to work to bring Gershkovitch back.
“Ivan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” Miller said. “The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows they are false. He should be released immediately.”
The Biden administration has sought to negotiate his release, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap only after a verdict in his trial.
“Russia’s latest step toward a sham trial, while expected, is extremely disappointing and nothing short of outrageous,” Dow Jones Chief Executive Officer and Journal publisher Alamar Latour and Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.
He said the allegations against Gershkovitch were “false and baseless.”
“The Russian regime’s smearing of Ivan is disgusting, abhorrent, and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Ivan’s case is an attack on the free press,” the statement said. “We hoped to avoid this moment, and now we expect the U.S. government to redouble its efforts to secure Ivan’s release.”
Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s special presidential envoy who serves as the U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, said that although he had been hopeful about reaching an agreement to bring Gershkovitch back home before this point, the latest development “cannot slow or stop us.”
“Ultimately the point is this was not unexpected,” he said.
Uralvagonzavod, a state-owned tank and railroad car factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, became known as a base of support for the president in 2011-12. Vladimir Putin,
Plant foreman Igor Kholmanskih appeared on Putin’s annual phone-in program in December 2011 and denounced the mass protests taking place in Moscow at the time as a threat to “stability” and suggested that he and his colleagues travel to the Russian capital to help quell the unrest. A week later, Putin appointed Kholmanskih as his envoy to the region.
Putin has said he believes a deal can be reached to release Gershkovich, indicating he would be willing to replace him with a Russian citizen imprisoned in Germany, who could be Vadim Krasikov, serving a life sentence for the 2019 murder of a Georgian citizen of Chechen origin in Berlin.
Asked about Gershkovich last week, Putin said the United States was “taking energetic steps” to secure his release. He told international news agencies in St. Petersburg that any such release is decided “not through the mass media” but through a “prudent, sober and professional approach.”
“And these must obviously be decided on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, pointing to possible prisoner swaps.
If convicted, Gershkovitch could face up to 20 years in prison.
He was the first American Journalist Gershkovitch was the second man detained on espionage charges after Nicholas Daniloff at the height of the Cold War in 1986. Gershkovitch’s arrest stunned foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country had enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of expression after sending troops into Ukraine.
The son of Soviet immigrants who settled in New Jersey, Gershkovitch was fluent in Russian and moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Since his arrest, Gershkovitch has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, a notorious tsarist-era prison used during Joseph Stalin’s purges, when executions were carried out in its basement.
US Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who regularly visited Gershkovitch in prison and attended his court hearings, has described the charges against him as “fictional” and said that Russia is “using American citizens as pawns to advance political objectives.”
Russian authorities have detained a number of American citizens and other Western nationals since sending troops into Ukraine, which appears to give credence to this idea.
