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Russia’s FSB security service said on Thursday it had detained a reporter for The Wall Street Journal on suspicion of spying for Washington, the most serious public move against a foreign journalist since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The FSB said in a statement that it had opened a criminal case for suspected espionage against U.S. national Evan Gershkovich, accusing him of gathering information classified as a state secret about a military factory.
It did not name the factory or say where it was, but said it had detained him in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg as he was trying to procure secret information.
It provided no evidence.
“It has been established that E. Gershkovich, acting on an assignment from the American side, was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex,” the FSB said in its statement.
