US reporter Evan Gershkovich to go on trial for espionage in Russia next week

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, left, stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, left, stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

US journalist Evan Gershkovich will go on trial on espionage charges in Russia’s Urals city of Yekaterinburg behind closed doors on June 26, the court overseeing the process says.

The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg and has been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison since.

He became the first Western journalist since the Soviet era to be arrested for spying in Russia.

Last week, Russia’s prosecutor general accused him of working for the CIA and “collecting secret information” about tank maker Uralvagonzavod in the Sverdlovsk region where he was arrested.

The United States says the charges have “zero credibility” and the Wall Street Journal slammed Russia’s announcement as “outrageous.”

Moscow had not previously provided any public details of its case against Gershkovich, saying only that he was “caught red-handed.”

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