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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his pre-trial detention on espionage charges in Moscow, Russia, October 10, 2023.
The upcoming espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich, the American journalist arrested last year in Russia, will be conducted in secret, according to Russian media.
Gershkovich, the son of Soviet emigrés, was reporting for the Wall Street Journal when he was detained on charges of collecting sensitive information about the Russian military. Russian prosecutors allege he was working on behalf of the CIA, but have presented no evidence publicly to support this claim. The Journal, along with the US government, says the charges are bogus.
Gershkovich’s detention has prompted talk of a possible prisoner swap with the West. The US has reportedly made several offers, but none has satisfied the Kremlin, which is seeking the release of one man in particular: Vadim Krasikov, a Russian spy serving a life sentence in Germany for the brazen, 2019 murder of a Kremlin opponent in Berlin.
The Germans, wary of setting a precedent that encourages Russia to use detained Westerners as bargaining chips, have so far shown little interest in releasing Krasikov. Whether the US might apply more pressure on Berlin remains to be seen. For now, there is no indication of how long Gershkovich’s black-box trial might last.