Russian Court Upholds Detention of American Reporter Evan Gershkovich

The Moscow City Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Evan Gershkovich, the American reporter detained on highly dubious espionage allegations in March 2023. Russia has yet to introduce any evidence against Gershkovich or schedule a date for his trial.

The latest rejection of a string of appeals from Gershkovich’s lawyers mean the hostage reporter is certain to spend over a year in prison before his trial gets underway. 

As his employers at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noted on Tuesday, Russian prosecutors have “wide latitude to request further extensions of pretrial detention.” When espionage trials are finally held, they are usually conducted in secret, and almost always result in convictions with lengthy prison sentences.

Previous appeals denied by the court included requests for Gershkovich to be granted bail or transferred to house arrest from the harsh Lefortovo prison in Moscow.

“It’s been nearly one year since Evan’s unjust arrest for doing nothing more than his job, and every day he remains in prison is an unconscionable attack on a free press. Evan is a journalist, and any suggestion or portrayal otherwise is fiction. We continue to demand his immediate release,” the WSJ’s editors said on Tuesday.

The Biden administration insisted that the charges against Gershkovich are “baseless” and he has been incarcerated for “simply reporting the news.”

“When the Kremlin uses lives as bargaining chips, real people suffer,” said U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy.

The Kremlin breezily denied that Gershkovich and other Americans, including recently arrested Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, are being held hostage by the regime of strongman Vladimir Putin. Karelina was arrested in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on Tuesday, the same city where Gershkovich was arrested almost a year ago, and charged with “treason” for donating a small amount of money to a Ukraine charity.

“There are many foreign journalists working in Russia. They freely carry out their work, regardless of which country they represent. If law enforcement agencies suspect some of violating the law, appropriate measures are taken against them,” insisted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The WSJ pointed out that in his controversial interview with Tucker Carlson a few weeks ago, Putin more or less admitted Gershkovich is being held as a hostage and used as leverage in a prisoner swap deal. 

The U.S. State Department said in December that Russia has rejected several “significant” offers to secure the freedom of Gershkovich and another American detainee, Paul Whelan, who was arrested in December 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

“They never should have been arrested in the first place. They should be released immediately. But we have made a number of proposals and [sic] including a substantial one in recent weeks and we will continue to work every day to bring Evan and Paul Whelan home,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in December.