Fifteen months of investigation and barely three days of trial: It came as no surprise on Friday, July 19, when the Russian legal system sentenced American Evan Gershkovich − the first Western journalist to be put on trial in Russia for espionage since the end of the Cold War − to 16 years in prison. The proceedings had suddenly accelerated this week, after an initial hearing on June 26.

The court in Yekaterinburg, capital of the Urals region, some 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow, had initially called for the prosecutor and defense lawyers to appear on August 13 to resume the trial behind closed doors. But the judge took everyone by surprise, holding the second and final hearing on Thursday, July 18, with a verdict following the next day.

Investigators never publicly presented a shred of evidence against 32-year-old Gershkovich, the Russia correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, who was arrested on March 29, 2023, in a Yekaterinburg restaurant. As is customary in the Russian legal system, the court reiterated the conclusions of the Federal Security Service (FSB, one of the heirs to the KGB). From the outset, they accused Gershkovich of "collecting information on a Russian defense enterprise," a crime punishable by 20 years in prison. The prosecutor had asked for 18. By giving a sentence of 16 years, the judge has made a show of being lenient.

"This heavy sentence could be a blessing in disguise," said a Western diplomatic source in Moscow, cautiously. Having been tried and convicted, Gershkovich can now be exchanged by the Kremlin for Russian prisoners held in the West. Between the end of the second hearing on Thursday and the pronouncement of the verdict on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had time to confirm that the issue was being discussed "at the level of the special services of both countries."

Last month, his deputy minister, Sergey Ryabkov, had already declared that Russia was awaiting a response from Washington: "The ball is in the US court." Vladimir Putin himself spoke out on the subject on several occasions. The Russian president has openly suggested that Gershkovich could be exchanged for a "patriot" who "eliminated a Russian bandit" in a European capital. A reference to Vadim Krassikov, an ex-FSB agent being detained in Germany, convicted of the murder of a Chechen dissident in a Berlin park in 2019.

Given that espionage trials usually last for months in Russia, the speed at which the verdict in the Gershkovich case was delivered could indicate an accelerated timetable in prisoner exchange talks. In December 2022, the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, incarcerated in the US since 2010, was exchanged for Brittney Griner, a famous American basketball player held in Russia.

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