Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor in chief Emma Tucker called the charge "false and baseless," slamming his arrest as "an assault on the free press." Neither the paper, nor the Biden administration, has been successful thus far in securing his release.
"Russia's latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous," the pair wrote in a statement, per the Guardian. "Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for simply doing his job. Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime's smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies."
"We continue to demand his immediate release," they continued. "We had hoped to avoid this moment and now expect the US government to redouble efforts to get Evan released."
In his own statement, the Russian prosecutor claimed that the investigation "established and documented" that Gershkovich, "on the instructions of the CIA in March 2023, collected secret information in the Sverdlovsk region about the activities of the defence enterprise … [at] Uralvagonzavod [industrial complex] for the production and repair of military equipment." He also claimed that "the illegal actions were committed by Gershkovich in compliance with careful measures of secrecy."
No evidence was provided to back up any of the allegations, and no date was announced for the start of the trial.
United States ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy also lamented Gershkovich's situation, arguing there was "no justification for Evan's continued detention, and no explanation as to why Evan doing his job as a journalist constituted a crime."
"Evan's case is not about evidence, due process or rule of law," she added. "It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends."
