Espionage in Russia carries a maximum jail term of 20 years.
New York: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been jailed for over a year in Russia on espionage charges, will stand trial in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, media reports said.
Gershkovich, 32, who was accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country's Foreign Ministry, was arrested on March 29 last year. He is the first Western journalist detained in Russia since the Soviet era.
An indictment of Gershkovich has been finalized and his case was filed to the Sverdlovsky Regional Court in the city, according to Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office. There was no word on when the trial would begin, the AP news agency reported.
The journalist has been accused of collecting "secret information" from a Russian tank factory on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Russian prosecutors have claimed that the reporter had collected "secret information" about the "production and repair of military equipment" from a Russian tank factory. They alleged that Gershkovich is carrying "out the illegal actions using painstaking conspiratorial methods", as per a BBC report.
The US, the Wall Street Journal, and Gershkovich have continued to deny the allegations. The US embassy in Moscow has said the grounds for his detention are "baseless". State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller stated that there is "absolutely zero credibility to those charges" and emphasized that journalism is not a crime.
The Biden administration has been attempting to negotiate Gershkovich's release, but Russia has indicated that they will only consider a prisoner swap after a verdict is reached in his trial.
Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin told American TV show host Tucker Carlson that he believed a deal could be reached to free Gershkovich. He added that it relied upon "our partners [taking] reciprocal steps", and hinted at the identity of a person Russia would accept in a prisoner exchange.
Espionage in Russia carries a maximum jail term of 20 years.
