Evan Gershkovich website
A reporter with the Wall Street Journal has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Thursday.
Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was detained in the west-central city of Yekaterinburg, the counter-intelligence agency confirmed to state media. The FSB says that Gershkovich was “suspected of spying in the interests of the U.S. government” and that his allegedly “illegal activities… have been stopped.”
The FSB further added that Gershkovich was arrested “while trying to obtain secret information,” and that he was acting “on the instructions of the United States” while collecting materials “on the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti said the materials constituted a “state secret.”