WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years in prison by Russian court

Cover photo: U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich appears in court in Russia's Yekaterinburg on June 26. Source: Evgenia Novozhenina / Reuters

A court in Russia’s Yekaterinburg has sentenced U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal to 16 years in prison after finding him guilty of espionage, according to a report from the media outlet Vecherniye Vedomosti citing its own correspondent who was present in the courtroom.

State prosecutors had previously requested an 18-year sentence for Gershkovich — two years less than the maximum sentence for the offense — in a case that the U.S. government, the WSJ, and his supporters have denounced as a sham.

Gershkovich's employer, WSJ publisher Dow Jones, said he had been unjustly arrested in a statement on Thursday:

“Evan’s wrongful detention has been an outrage since his unjust arrest 477 days ago, and it must end now, Even as Russia orchestrates its shameful sham trial, we continue to do everything we can to push for Evan’s immediate release and to state unequivocally: Evan was doing his job as a journalist, and journalism is not a crime. Bring him home now.”

“We have been clear from the get-go that Evan did nothing wrong and should not have been detained,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Thursday. “To date, Russia has provided no evidence of a crime and has failed to justify Evan's continued detention. Evan should not be detained.”

The Sverdlovsk Regional Court heard Gershkovich's case in two sessions, both of which were held behind closed doors. Gershkovich pled not guilty to the charges.

According to Russian investigators, Gershkovich had allegedly collected secret information about the work of Uralvagonzavod — one of the world’s largest tank manufacturers — in the Sverdlovsk Region “on the instructions” of the CIA. He was detained in Yekaterinburg on March 30 last year and subsequently arrested on suspicion of espionage and “collecting state secrets.”

Prior to his arrest, Gershkovich was working on an article on the public attitude to the Wagner Group. While in Yekaterinburg, he managed to interview local resident Yaroslav Shirshikov for the piece.

The Insider managed to contact Shirshikov, who detailed what they spoke about:

“We discussed the public's attitude towards Prigozhin, the decline in public interest in the [special military operation], the history, culture and social and political life of our city. I took him to one of the branches of the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg, gave him a small tour of the [city] center, showed him our famous public garden, which the citizens had protected from barbaric development. The Russian authorities were not interested in my person.”

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said that Gershkovich was caught “red-handed,” but no evidence was provided. The Wall Street Journal denies the accusations and has maintained Gershkovich’s innocence. The U.S. State Department has declared the 32-year-old journalist wrongfully detained, which commits the U.S. government to seek his release.

In an interview with ex-Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson in February this year, Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia was ready to exchange Gershkovich for the FSB-linked hitman Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Chechen commander who fought against Russia in the Second Chechen and the Russo-Georgian wars. According to Putin, Gershkovich could be exchanged if there is a “reciprocal movement.” At the same time, Putin also admitted that he is not sure whether the WSJ journalist is indeed a spy.

On July 17, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that the issue of Gershkovich's potential exchange was being discussed by Russian and U.S. intelligence agencies.

For more details on the practice of capturing foreign hostages for subsequent exchange, see The Insider's April 2023 article “Catch and exchange: Russia’s FSB goes after foreigners.”