Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage on Friday and sentenced to 16 years, on charges that his employer and the U.S. government have dismissed as baseless.
His swift and secretive trial in the country’s highly politicized legal system might pave the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
When asked by the judge in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court if he understood the verdict, Gershkovich replied affirmatively.
Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains and accused of spying for the U.S. He has been imprisoned since his arrest.
He is the first U.S. journalist to be charged with espionage in Russia since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, during the Cold War. His arrest shocked the foreign press in Russia, despite the country's increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech following the deployment of troops into Ukraine.
The trial's closing arguments were held behind closed doors, and Gershkovich did not admit guilt, according to the court’s press service.
