Falsely accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appears before Russian court

The ‘wrongfully detained’ American journalist appeared in a secret trial, as a senior Kremlin official said Moscow was open to the possibility of a deal that would send him home.

WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage, looks out from inside a glass defendants' cage prior to a hearing in Yekaterinburg's Sverdlovsk Regional Court on Wednesday.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared in a Russian court Wednesday to face a false accusation of espionage in a secret trial, as a senior Kremlin official told reporters that Moscow was open to the possibility of a prisoner-swap deal that would send him home.

The 32-year-old American journalist has been imprisoned since March of last year, when he was arrested by the country’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, while on a reporting assignment in Yekaterinburg, around 900 miles east of Moscow.

Gershkovich, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny the accusations against him. The U.S. has designated him as “wrongfully detained” and has called for his immediate release.

On a day that Gershkovich was put on display in a padlocked, transparent box in a Yekaterinburg courtroom, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, again raised the prospect of a prisoner exchange with the U.S., something that has become a common refrain from Russian officials.

The Kremlin has “repeatedly emphasized that the U.S.” should “seriously consider the signals” Moscow has sent to Washington about possible deals, he told state news agency RIA Novosti.

A State Department spokesperson, asked about the Ryabkov comments, said: “We aren’t going to negotiate in public.

Gershkovich smiles to cameras before media was ushered out of the courtroom.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, on Wednesday condemned the proceedings against Evan as a “sham trial.” He said Gershkovich “is simply being used as a bargaining chip,” along with another American held by Moscow, Paul Whelan.

Russian investigators haven’t publicly presented evidence to back up their allegation against Gershkovich. And Russia’s legal system offers few, if any, of the legal protections accorded in the U.S. and other Western countries. Acquittals in espionage cases are exceedingly rare.

Earlier this month, Russian prosecutors approved an indictment of Gershkovich, falsely alleging that he was gathering information about a Russian defense contractor on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In fact, Gershkovich, who was accredited as a foreign correspondent by Russian authorities, was in Yekaterinburg and elsewhere in the Sverdlovsk region for the sole purpose of reporting for the Journal.

Video footage shot inside the courtroom before the start of proceedings showed Gershkovich -- with a shaved head, dressed in jeans and an open-collared plaid shirt -- as he smiled and at one point waved, before journalists were escorted from the room.

Wednesday’s hearing appeared to last more than two hours. Afterward the prosecutor, Mikael Ozdoev, dressed in a blue, military-style uniform, made a brief statement, saying the case against Gershkovich had begun, and alleging he “performed illegal actions in secret.” The court said Gershkovich’s next hearing was set for Aug. 13. “Today our colleague Evan Gershkovich faced the Russian regime’s shameful and illegitimate proceedings against him,” Almar Latour, the publisher of the Journal and CEO of its parent company, Dow Jones, and the Journal’s editor in chief, Emma Tucker, said in statement.

“It’s jarring to see him in yet another courtroom for a sham trial held in secret and based on fabricated accusations,” Latour and Tucker said. “The time to bring Evan home is now, and we continue to demand his immediate release.” Gershkovich’s family issued a statement saying: “These past 15 months have been extraordinarily painful for Evan and for our family. We miss our son and just want him home. We’re deeply disappointed that he will have to endure further attempts to discredit him.” Gershkovich is the first U.S. journalist to be detained in Russia on an espionage allegation since the end of the Cold War. His case is playing out against a background of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated in February that he would be open to a prisoner swap for Gershkovich and others. He made clear reference to Vadim Krasikov, an FSB operative now serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Chechen émigré in Berlin in 2019.

Whelan, a retired Marine, is serving a 16-year sentence following conviction on espionage charges that he, his family and the U.S. government say are false. The U.S. has also deemed Whelan wrongfully detained.

Until recently, Gershkovich has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where Russia has held political prisoners since the days of the Soviet Union. He was moved to Yekaterinburg to be tried, marking the start of a new phase in the proceedings against him.

It follows more than a year of pretrial hearings and appeals by the journalist against his detention, including at least one failed request by his legal team that he be transferred to house arrest, agree to constraints on his movements or be granted bail.

Espionage trials in Russia are opaque. Lawyers defending those on trial for alleged espionage are barred from disclosing information on the proceedings to outsiders.

The agenda for Wednesday’s hearing was unclear. The court, Yekaterinburg’s Sverdlovsk Regional Court, said recently that it would consider “the merits of the case.” It isn’t known how long any trial for Gershkovich would last. “They have made false claims about his behavior, about his actions, about associations with the United States Government that simply aren’t true,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

He said that the charges against Gershkovich should never have been brought in the first place. “I certainly don’t expect a free and fair trial,” Miller said.

Two U.S. consular officials were at the courthouse in Yekaterinburg on Wednesday.

The Russian lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov, who represented Whelan, said witnesses in secret trials are sometimes covertly escorted into the courtroom through concealed passages and entrances. Their testimony isn’t made public.

Sometimes witnesses are allowed to testify remotely, including through videoconferencing and even from abroad, Zherebenkov said.

Russian authorities are also holding the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, a dual Russia-U.S. citizen who was detained last year in the city of Kazan while visiting her ailing mother.

She was initially held on an allegation that she had failed to register as a foreign agent, and was subsequently charged with spreading false information about the Russian military in relation to a book she helped edit that criticizes the invasion of Ukraine.

Kurmasheva has denied the allegations against her through her husband, Pavel Butorin, and her legal team.

WSJ