Russia arrests Wall Street Journal reporter for espionage

By Associated Press Reporters

Russia’s top security agency says a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich had been detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.

The FSB alleged that he “was acting on the US orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state secret”.

The agency did not say when the arrest took place.

Mr Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage.

He is the first reporter for an American news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War.

His arrest comes amid bitter tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fighting in Ukraine.

Mr Gershkovich covers Russia and Ukraine as a correspondent with the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau, and the FSB noted that he had accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist.

His last report from Moscow, published earlier this week, focused on the Russian economy’s slowdown amid western sanctions.