US journalist Evan Gershkovich jailed for 16 years by Russian court

US journalist Evan Gershkovich has been jailed for 16 years in a Russian prison on “politically motivated” charges of espionage.

Mr Gershkovich, 32, has been behind bars since his March 2023 arrest after Moscow accused him of “gathering secret information” for the CIA about a military equipment facility in central Russia.

The Wall Street Journal reporter has denied the charges and nations including the US and UK have hit out at what they see as politically motivated charges – with US president Joe Biden calling his detention “totally illegal”.

The Kremlin has said he was caught “red-handed”, but has not published evidence. The court proceedings have been closed to the media, with the verdict announced on Friday afternoon.

Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said: “This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist.

“We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and support his family. Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he is released. This must end now.”

Previously, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Evan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime.

“The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows that they’re false. He should be released immediately.”

The Biden administration has sought to negotiate Mr Gershkovich’s release but Moscow has said it would consider a prisoner swap only after a trial verdict.

Vladimir Putin has said he believes a deal could be reached to free Mr Gershkovich, hinting he would be open to swapping him for a Russian national imprisoned in Germany.

That appeared to be a reference to Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent in Berlin.

The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, Mr Gershkovich is fluent in Russian and moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the WSJ in 2022.

US ambassador Lynne Tracy, who regularly visited Mr Gershkovich in prison and attended his court hearings, has called the charges against him “fiction” and said that Russia is “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”.