MOSCOW ( AP ) — U. S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been jailed for over a year in Russia on espionage charges, will stand trial in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, authorities said Thursday.
An accusation of the Wall Street Journal columnist has been finalized and his case was filed to the Sverdlovsky Regional Court in the area about 1, 400 meters (870 miles ) south of Moscow, according to Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office.
Gershkovich is accused of “gathering key information” on purchases from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a hospital in the Sverdlovsk area that produces and repairs military technology, the Prosecutor General’s department said in a speech, revealing for the first time the details of the accusations against him.
The officials did n’t provide any evidence to back up the accusations. No information was given as to when the trial may begin.
The Biden administration has made efforts to arrange his launch, but the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that it would only consider a prisoner transfer once his test results.
In March 2023, Gershkovich was detained while on a reporting excursion to Yekaterinburg and charged with spying for the United States. The writer, his company and the U. S. state denied the allegations, and Washington designated him as wrongfully detained.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, alleged at the time he was acting on U. S. requests to collect position techniques but also provided no evidence.
Uralvagonzavod, a express container and rail car manufacturer in the area of Nizhny Tagil about 100 kilometers ( 60 miles ) north of Yekaterinburg, became known in 2011- 12 as a core of support for President Vladimir Putin.
Igor Kholmanskih, a plant foreman who was featured on Putin’s annual phone-in program in December 2011, attacked widespread protests in Moscow at the time as a threat to” stability” and suggested that he and his colleagues should go to the capital to help halt the unrest. Kholmanskikh was appointed as Putin’s envoy to the region a week later.
Putin has indicated that he would be willing to trade Gershkovich for a Russian national imprisoned in Germany, which he claimed to be Vadim Krasikov, and that he believes a deal could be reached. He was serving a life sentence for the 2019 murder of a Georgian national of Chechen descent in Berlin.
Asked last week by The Associated Press about Gershkovich, Putin said the U. S. is” taking energetic steps” to secure his release. He told international news agencies in St. Petersburg that any such releases “are n’t decided via mass media” but through a “discreet, calm and professional approach”.
In an allusion to a potential prisoner swap, he continued,” And they certainly should be decided only on the basis of reciprocity.”
Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
He was the first U.S. journalist detained on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, when the Cold War was at its height. Even though the country had passed increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech after sending troops into Ukraine, Gershkovich’s arrest shocked foreign journalists in Russia.
Gershkovich, who was the son of Soviet immigrants who settled in New Jersey, was fluent in Russian and immigrated there in 2017. He started his work there before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Since his arrest, Gershkovich has been held at Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, a notorious czarist- era prison used during Josef Stalin’s purges, when executions were carried out in its basement.
The charges against Gershkovich were “fiction,” according to U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who frequently visited him in prison and spoke to his court hearings. Russia is “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends.”
Since sending troops to Ukraine, Russian authorities have detained several U. S. nationals and other Westerners, seemingly bolstering that idea.
