MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. Investigators from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have asked a Moscow court to arrest a US national, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Yekaterinburg on charges of espionage earlier on Thursday, law enforcement officials told TASS.

"The [Lefortovo district] court has received a request from the FSB Investigative Directorate to arrest Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich," the officials said on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, the FSB said that Gershkovich, "acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex." The reporter was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage").

In light of this, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a statement expressing deep concern for the safety of Gershkovich. According to the WSJ, Gershkovich covers Russia from his post at the newspaper’s Moscow bureau.