![]() Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, wrote on Telegram on Thursday morning that it was not the first time that journalistic accreditation had been used in Russia as “cover” for other activities. Foreign journalists continued to work, but the times have changed and you can’t hope for business as usual any more,” he added. “Russian journalists heard this signal earlier and almost all of them left. The unspoken immunity for accredited journalists does not work any more,” said Pavlov. “It’s a signal to foreign journalists that this is it, no more work. However, this is the first time a foreign reporter has been charged with crimes since the beginning of the war. Russia’s foreign ministry has put dozens of journalists on blacklists, barring them from entry, and refused accreditation to others.Ī series of laws, including one outlawing “fakes”, have made honest reporting on the war from inside Russia difficult and dangerous, and many journalists have left. Since Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, reporting from inside Russia has become much more difficult. Prior to the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich had worked in Russia for the Moscow Times and Agence France-Presse.īefore his arrest, Gershkovich was reportedly working on a story about Wagner, the notionally private military group run by the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, which has done much of the fighting in Ukraine. Gershkovich, 31, has lived in Moscow for six years, speaks fluent Russian and is accredited as a journalist with Russia’s foreign ministry. “Vladimir Putin’s decision to arrest an American journalist in Russia is an escalation not seen between our two countries since the days of the Soviet Union and the cold war,” said Quigley in a statement. There was no immediate reaction from the White House or state department, but Mike Quigley, co-chair of the congressional Ukraine caucus, described the arrest as “the latest salvo in Putin’s efforts to use Americans as leverage in his conflict with Ukraine” and called for Gershkovich’s immediate release. “Back in 2015, we were sometimes able to get a few people out, but now that has become impossible,” he said. Pavlov said espionage cases like this could take up to two years from arrest to sentencing, and Gershkovich’s only hope of release was either to be included in an exchange or for the current Russian regime to fall. The idea is to have an ace up their sleeve for negotiations.” “They’ve chosen a well-known journalist from an authoritative media outlet. “It’s clear that they’ve taken a hostage,” agreed Ivan Pavlov, Russia’s leading defence lawyer in espionage cases, who now lives outside the country. The arrest amounted to “hostage-taking as a tool of statecraft,” Russia analyst Mark Galeotti wrote on Twitter. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the newspaper said in a statement.įriends and colleagues of Gershkovich called the allegations absurd, describing Gershkovich as a professional and the allegations against him as “ridiculous”. “The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. The court ordered him to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 29 May, local media reported. On Thursday, he appeared at the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow for a brief hearing at which the charges were officially presented. Gershkovich was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. But many observers accused Moscow of engaging in “hostage taking”, by arresting a high-profile reporter who could be used as leverage in a potential prisoner swap. The FSB claimed Gershkovich was “acting on instructions from the American side”.
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