The Russian security service FSB has detained a Wall Street Journal reporter on espionage charges. The FSB released a statement saying that Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
The Journal denied the allegations.
“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the Journal said. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
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Gershkovich was picked up in the city of Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia. There are a number of legitimate stories that Gershkovich could have been working on. His most recent work for the Journal dealt with the failing Russian economy and the battle for Bakhmut.
But the FSB doesn’t need an excuse.
Russia last March passed a censorship law that makes it illegal to publish what authorities deem false information about military operations in Ukraine. In response, many domestic news outlets ceased operations or left the country and foreign media significantly restricted reporting inside Russia and withdrew many staff.
Mr. Putin in October tightened restrictions across Russian society with a presidential decree granting local governments in the country’s regions new authority to address security concerns. The measures were aimed at maintaining public order, boosting industrial production in support of the military campaign and protecting critical infrastructure, Mr. Putin said at the time.
Investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian security services, says the FSB is “off the leash.”
.@evangershkovich is a very good and brave journalist, not a spy, for Christ's sake. It is a frontal attack on all foreign correspondents who still work in Russia. And it means that the FSB is off the leash. https://t.co/UGe1K6Uo4W
— Andrei Soldatov (@AndreiSoldatov) March 30, 2023
The Russian foreign ministry has been working overtime to justify seizing the American.
“What that employee of The Wall Street Journal was doing in Yekaterinburg does not have any relation to journalism,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
On the contrary, according to Russian sources, Gershkovich was reportedly in Yekaterinburg to cover local reaction to the war in Ukraine and Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
Local PR expert Yaroslav Shirshikov said Thursday that he had assisted Gershkovich with reporting from the city and that he received an overnight phone call from a WSJ employee unable to contact Gershkovich.
According to Shirshikov, Gershkovich visited Yekaterinburg several weeks ago, but recently returned to the city.
“We talked with him [Gershkovich] about the socio-political life of the city,” Shirshikov told The Moscow Times when asked about his meeting earlier this month with Gershkovich, adding that the reporter appeared “very pleased with his trip.”
Shirshikov said earlier that Gershkovich was likely detained Wednesday afternoon, highlighting a local media report that security officers entered the city’s Bukowski Grill restaurant and took an unidentified man with a sweater pulled over his head into a minibus.
One possible excuse used by the FSB to detain Gershkovich was the reporter’s recent visit to the nearby city of Nizhny Tagil, which is the location of a major tank factory. A Westerner in the vicinity of a tank factory was more than enough reason to have someone arrested when the KGB was in charge of internal security during the Soviet era.
But the FSB is far more likely to have detained Gershkovich for reporting inconvenient facts about the war and the Russian economy.
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