A Russian court has sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in a penal colony after convicting him of espionage in a brief and secret trial. Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg in March 2023 while on a reporting trip.
Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a facility in the Sverdlovsk region that produces and repairs military equipment, the Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement, revealing for the first time the details of the accusations against him.
Gershkovich, a native Russian speaker, was assigned to cover Putin’s War, and the facility he was accused of spying on was affiliated with the now-disbanded Wagner Group. His arrest is the first of an American journalist in Russia since Nicholas Daniloff was arrested on similarly trumped-up espionage charges in…
