The Biden administration is "deeply concerned" about the arrest of a Wall Street Journal reporter in Russia on espionage allegations, which his employer has vehemently denied.
Evan Gershkovich is believed to be the first American reporter to be held as an accused spy in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. His detention comes as the U.S.-Russian relationship continues to deteriorate as the two stand on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine.
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"We are deeply concerned by the troubling reports that Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen, has been detained in Russia," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. "The targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable. We condemn the detention of Mr. Gershkovich in the strongest terms. We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press."
White House and State Department officials have spoken with the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich's family, and the department specifically has been in "direct touch" with the Russian government, Jean-Pierre added.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement on Thursday that the agency had “stopped the illegal activities” of Gershkovich and claimed he was “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
"We are not talking about suspicions, but about the fact that he was detained red-handed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a news briefing, according to NBC News.
He pleaded not guilty in court, according to Russian state media, Tass, while the Wall Street Journal denied the allegations against him. The court ordered him to be held in custody until May 29.
The charge of espionage is punishable by 20 years in prison in Russia's judicial system, which experts say overwhelmingly finds defendants guilty.
“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the F.S.B. and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the outlet said. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation, National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told reporters, noting the administration "condemns Mr. Gershkovich's detention" and does so "in the strongest terms."
Kirby declined to provide specific estimations as to whether his arrest was in retaliation for any recent event, saying it was too early for them to know.
In light of Gershkovich's arrest, the administration reiterated its insistence that Americans leave Russia.
While Gershkovich is the first journalist believed to be detained in Russia in decades, another American, Paul Whelan, is currently serving a significant prison sentence on espionage charges he denies. Whelan was arrested in late 2018 while in Russia for a wedding under espionage allegations that both he, his family, and the U.S. government have denounced as false. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in June 2020.
The Biden administration has repeatedly sought to get him back, but to no avail thus far. President Joe Biden signed off on two prisoner exchanges with Russia last year, securing the releases of Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner, neither of whom were accused of spying on behalf of the U.S., though Whelan was left behind.
Administration officials have said the Kremlin considers him to be a higher-value prisoner given the espionage charges against him, a plight that Gershkovich may find himself in.
"It sounds as though the frame-up of Mr. Gershkovich was the same as it was in Paul's case," David Whelan, Paul's brother, said in a statement to the media. "Unfortunately, the White House does not seem to have found a way to resolve cases like Paul's, where an American is falsely charged with espionage by the Kremlin."
He later added, "We don't have much to show for those good intentions."
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department charged Sergey Cherkasov, 37, whom the agency accused of being a Russian spy. He allegedly traveled to Brazil, where he built and studied the backstory of Victor Muller Ferreira — his alias — before moving to the U.S. in 2018 under the guise of attending graduate school at Johns Hopkins University. Cherkasov filed reports to his handlers about how Biden administration officials were responding to Russia's military buildup before the war in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.
The deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Russia far exceeds the purportedly wrongful detention of Americans.
Russia's military invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and failed to meet its goals to topple the government in Kyiv. Once Russia's initial failures became clear, the U.S. and its Western allies began pouring billions of dollars of military aid into Ukraine's military to help them regain their territory.
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Following the invasion, the Kremlin passed a law restricting press criticism of the military.
Russia's military, while conducting a war aimed at conquering Ukraine, has also gotten aggressive toward U.S. military aircraft in the region. Earlier this month, a Russian pilot struck a U.S. MQ-9 drone that the U.S. Air Force ultimately had to crash land into the Black Sea. The U.S. military took measures to wipe it of any sensitive information should the Russians recover it, though a U.S. military official told the Washington Examiner previously that they weren't actively trying to recover it because it "sank to an unrecoverable depth in the Black Sea."