Russia accused the ‘Wall Street Journal’ reporter of espionage
Investigating the allegations of Russian espionage and Russian smiddling against the United States and the West: the case of Mr. Gershkovich
The arrest of Gershkovich further tightens the screws. A statement by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was particularly noteworthy for anyone who has ever worked as an accredited journalist in Russia.
The agency alleges that Gershkovich was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex.
Foreign reporters working in Russia used to think that the curbs on reporting independent of the government would not affect them, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “But with these very serious charges, it is clear that any foreign correspondent could be a victim.”
Danielle Rhoades Ha said on Thursday that Mr. Gershkovich’s coverage of Russia has been fair and accurate.
Condemnations from Washington of Gershkovich’s arrest have been swift. Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who is the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that this latest move should be seen “in concert with their nuclear announcements, the abrogation of their treaty obligations, as a way of just ramping up pressure on the West, signaling that Moscow’s going to use whatever tools it has, including essentially hostage-taking, to try to deter the United States and the west from opposing its ambitions in Ukraine.”
President Biden was briefed on Mr. Gershkovich’s detention and the secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said he was “deeply concerned.” State Department officials had contacted Russian authorities to secure access to the reporter and check on his welfare.
The correspondents have continued to receive accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry and have been able to operate.
A video and photos showed Mr. Gershkovich wearing a jacket hood while walking out of the Moscow court building. He pleaded not guilty to espionage charges, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.
Russia has in the past tried to get an exchange for a Russian spy held in the West. In 2019, in exchange for two convicted Russian spies in Lithuania, Moscow freed a Norwegian man who had been held for 23 months on accusations of espionage.
The release of a Russian arms dealer from U.S. custody in a prisoner swap took place after a months-long negotiations that began in February 2022, after the arrest of a W.N.B.A. star on a minor drug charge.
American officials have also pushed for the release of Paul Whelan, a former Marine who has been held in Russia since 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for what the United States considers sham espionage charges.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A.Ryabkov, said that it was too soon to discuss a swap for Mr. Gershkovich. The Russian news agency Interfax reported that Mr. Warmanov said that certain exchanges took place in the past for people who were already serving sentences.
A senior fellow with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in France said that Mr. Gershkovich’s reporting on the Russian military was what drew the attention of the Russian security services.
“I think that it will attract a lot of attention politically in the United States so that the authorities will have to react,” she said, adding that his arrest “puts the Kremlin in an advantageous position.”
Mr. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, said that the Kremlin was not planning to shut down The Journal’s Moscow bureau. “Those that are carrying out normal journalistic activity, if they have a valid accreditation, then of course they will continue to work,” he said.
Emma Tucker is the new top editor of the Journal. In 2014, as deputy editor of The Times of London, Ms. Tucker was closely involved in an episode involving two correspondents who had been kidnapped and detained in Syria. One of the journalists was shot in the leg and the other was beaten up by others before they were able to escape.
“As we have seen too often, the arrest of journalists anywhere in the world deprives the public of news that is essential to all of us,” Ms. Rhoades Ha said. She said that The Times did not have any reporters in Russia.
There are already two fronts that the Kremlin has succeeded in. The move sends a chill through Russia’s foreign press corps, and further sharpens a confrontation with Washington.
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“Under the cover of journalism, this person was involved in a completely different activity,” she said. He is a journalist because of the reports that he had accreditation. This is what he claims to be.
The state has pursued similar charges against Russian journalists, and most recently it was a case of former defense reporterIvan Safronov who was sentenced last year to 22 years in prison for supposedly leaking classified information.
The Russian state is becoming very repressive and hitting ordinary citizens and journalists. A Russian court recently sentenced a man whose daughter drew an anti-war picture at school to two years in prison for his own internet comments that were critical of Russia. After the man was put under house arrest, his daughter was placed in an orphanage.
At a state-of-the-nation address in February, President Putin announced that his country was suspending participation in the New START treaty. Russia said all nuclear notifications had been suspended — though the US State Department says it has not formally received notice from Russia — further ratcheting up tensions with the US.
In an email to the press, Paul’s brother David said, “Our family is sorry to hear that another American family will have to experience the same trauma that we have had to endure for the past 1,553 days.”
It’s a bleak assessment of the situation. The wisdom in Russia is that it can always be worse, even though US-Russian relations are hitting new lows.
