NEW YORK, April 8. /TASS/. The US administration is ready for creative solutions in swapping Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan detained in Russia for espionage, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing a high-ranking White House official.

"Yet as transactions are an option, they are also perennially difficult to strike—and may be growing more so. […] The challenge in all cases is to line up trade candidates on the Russian side who are valuable enough to Moscow to demand, and yet palatable enough to Washington to release," the newspaper says.

A senior White House official indicated that the US "is open to creative solutions to reach a deal," both for Whelan and Gershkovich. "Within that which is legally available, we are constantly looking to see what might be relevant or what might be useful," the official said.

According to the Public Relations Center of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), 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. FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage"). Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the journalist had been "caught red-handed." On March 30, Moscow’s Lefortovo district court ordered to arrest Gershkovich until May 29.

On December 28, 2018, Whelan, who has US, UK, Canadian and Irish citizenship, was taken into custody by the FSB in a room at Moscow’s Metropol Hotel while on an alleged spy mission. The FSB opened a criminal case against him on charges of espionage under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code. On June 15, 2020, the Moscow City Court found Whelan guilty of spying against Russia and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security colony. Whelan is serving out his sentence in a correctional facility in Mordovia.