A Russian court has sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in a penal colony after convicting him of espionage in a brief and secret trial. Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg in March 2023 while on a reporting trip.
Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a facility in the Sverdlovsk region that produces and repairs military equipment, the Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement, revealing for the first time the details of the accusations against him.
Gershkovich, a native Russian speaker, was assigned to cover Putin’s War, and the facility he was accused of spying on was affiliated with the now-disbanded Wagner Group. His arrest is the first of an American journalist in Russia since Nicholas Daniloff was arrested on similarly trumped-up espionage charges in 1986.
Gershkovich’s sentencing comes as an OSCE monitor in Russian-occupied Donetsk was sentenced to 16 years for espionage while serving on an authorized monitoring mission in September 2022 and amid a major upswing in trials for treason and espionage in Russia.
Treason cases have been rare in Russia in the last 30 years, with a handful annually. But since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they have skyrocketed, along with espionage prosecutions, ensnaring citizens and foreigners alike, regardless of their politics.
That has brought comparisons to the show trials under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s.
The more recent victims range from Kremlin critics and independent journalists to veteran scientists working with countries that Moscow considers friendly.
I think Gershkovich’s arrest and conviction have two aspects. First, it lets Western journalists know they aren’t bulletproof and they are in the same jeopardy as the Russians they talk to. Second, the Russians have said that no exchange of Gershkovich is possible until a verdict in his case. That is accomplished, and I think he will be released in the near future. My prediction is that Russia will wait until after the elections to make a decision. If Trump wins, they will quickly release Gershkovich to give Trump a political win in hopes they can parlay that into something bigger in the Ukraine war.
