MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. FSB investigators have formally charged US citizen Evan Gershkovich, who worked in the Moscow bureau of The Wall Street Journal, and was previously detained in Yekaterinburg and then arrested in Moscow, with espionage.
As a law enforcement source specified to TASS on Friday, the journalist denied his guilt.
"The FSB investigation charged Gershkovich with espionage in the interests of his country. He categorically denied all accusations and stated that he was engaged in journalistic activities in Russia," the source said. He declined to comment further, since the case is classified as top secret.
The Public Relations Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said earlier that Evan 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"). On March 30, Moscow’s Lefortovo district court sanctioned Gershkovich’s arrest until May 29.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Evan Gershkovich had been caught red-handed.
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.