Devendra Kumar
A Russian court has extended the arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich by three months, Russian news agencies reported, ordering him to be held until August 30. Gershkovich, a 31-year-old American citizen, was arrested in March on espionage charges during a reporting trip in Russia. His employer, the Wall Street Journal, and the US government have denied the charges, describing them as “demonstrably false” and demanding his immediate release. Gershkovich is the first US correspondent since the Cold War to be detained in Russia on spying charges, and his arrest drew outrage in the West.
The US government has declared Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” and demanded his immediate release. He is being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where US Embassy officials were allowed to visit him at least once since his arrest. Russian authorities have not detailed what evidence, if any, they have to support the espionage charges, and the entire case has been shrouded in secrecy. Various legal proceedings have been closed to the media, and it is unclear whether Gershkovich or US Embassy representatives attended Tuesday’s hearing or what was said.
The Wall Street Journal released a statement after the hearing, saying they were “deeply disappointed” by the decision and calling for Gershkovich’s immediate release. The US State Department also called on Russia to comply with its obligation to provide consular access to Gershkovich. The charges against him are “baseless” and the US continues to call for his immediate release, along with that of Paul Whelan, a former US marine serving a 16-year espionage sentence in a remote Russian prison.
Whelan was detained in 2018 and is now serving his sentence. The Biden administration had hoped to secure his release during negotiations on a prisoner exchange that eventually freed American basketball star Brittney Griner from a Russian prison last December. The US government, the Wall Street Journal, and Whelan himself deny the charges of espionage, and Whelan’s family has traveled to Moscow to visit him in prison.