US journalist Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years for espionage

A court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg has found Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison on Friday after a trial behind closed doors that lasted just three days, independent news outlet SOTAvision has reported.

Gershkovich, the first US journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, was detained in the city of Yekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural region in March 2023 while researching a story on the Wagner mercenary group. He has already spent nearly 16 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison.

Prosecutors requested the court hand Gershkovich a sentence of 18 years earlier on Friday. The first hearing in his case was held on 26 June, followed by two more hearings on Thursday and Friday. No witnesses were questioned during the first hearing, and only one witness — Vyacheslav Vegner, a lawmaker from the Sverdlovsk region who was interviewed by Gershkovich before his arrest — was seen leaving the courtroom on Thursday, Mediazona reported.

Due to the closed-door nature of the trial, reporters were unable to get access to Geshkovich’s final statement in court.

US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy branded the accusations against Gershkovich “categorically untrue”, adding that his detention was solely about “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”. US President Joe Biden vowed in March to “continue working every day” to secure Gershkovich’s release.

Vladimir Putin indicated in February that he was open to a prisoner swap that included Gershkovich, suggesting that he might be exchanged for Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov, who is currently serving a life sentence in Germany for a politically-motivated killing in a Berlin park in 2019.

Associates of slain opposition leader Alexey Navalny have said that the Kremlin had been in talks to exchange Navalny and “two unnamed US citizens” for Krasikov in February, but the negotiations were suspended after Navalny’s death in prison.

Russian officials continue to bring up the possibility of exchanging Gershkovich, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying on Wednesday that Russian and US security services were in contact “to see who can be exchanged for whom”.