Russian authorities on Thursday said American journalist Evan Gershkovich will stand trial in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he was detained over a year ago on charges his employer says are bogus.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office said an indictment of Gershkovich has been finalized and his case filed to the Sverdlovsky Regional Court in Yekaterinburg. The city is about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) east of Moscow.
Gershkovich, a Russia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed in Moscow since he was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges.
Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. government all deny the accusations, and the U.S. State Department has declared the reporter wrongfully detained.
The 32-year-old is accused of “gathering secret information” about a facility in the Sverdlovsk region that produced and repaired military equipment, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
It is the first time that Russia has publicly detailed the accusations against the journalist. Russian officials have not provided any evidence to substantiate the accusations against Gershkovich, who was accredited by the Foreign Ministry to work in the country.
A State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. government will continue to work to secure Gershkovich’s release.
“We have been clear from the start that Evan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
“The charges against him are false, and the Russian government knows that they’re false. He should be released immediately,” Miller continued.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday also reiterated its calls for Gershkovich’s immediate release.
“Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge. Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” Journal Publisher Almar Latour and Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.
“Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Evan’s case is an assault on free press,” they said in the statement.
Press freedom groups also reaffirmed their condemnation of Gershkovich’s jailing.
“He’s held hostage by the Russian government, and the spying charges are completely fabricated,” Jeanne Cavelier, who heads the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders, told VOA from Paris.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
It is unclear when the trial will take place. Press freedom experts have previously told VOA that a trial will almost certainly be a sham, but that it is a necessary step to securing Gershkovich’s release through a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
Moscow and Washington have been discussing a possible prisoner exchange over the past several months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that any deal to free Gershkovich would have to be mutually beneficial for Moscow. Putin has previously indicated that the Kremlin would be willing to trade Gershkovich for a convicted killer jailed in Germany.
“If anything, we hope it [the indictment] adds an element of urgency to those negotiations, so that he doesn’t have to endure a trial,” said Paul Beckett, an assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal, who is leading the newspaper’s campaign to secure Gershkovich’s release.
“We hoped that he would be back home by now,” Beckett told VOA. “We remain optimistic that this will be brought to a close before too long. We just want him home.”
Gershkovich is one of two American journalists currently jailed in Russia. The second — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Alsu Kurmasheva — has been jailed since October 2023 on charges of failing to self-register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military.
Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, has denied the charges against her. The U.S. government has also called for her immediate release.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
