Gershkovich has lived in Moscow for the past six years as a Wall Street Journal reporter focusing his coverage on Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. He is accredited as a journalist by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Wall Street Journal reported. His last articlepublished on Tuesday, was about the possible future decline of the Russian economy.
Gershkovich’s arrest comes at a time when the Kremlin is cracking down on dissent and criticism during the ongoing war in Ukraine, which the international community has condemned. In September 2022, the Russian police arrested 1,300 people in anti-war protests after President Vladimir Putin announced that citizens would be recruited to fight against Ukraine. More recently, a Russian father was sentenced to two years in prison after his 13-year-old daughter made pro-Ukrainian art with the slogan “Glory to Ukraine.”
Russia is also cracking down on the media. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Putin signed a law making it a crime reporting “fake” news about the war with Ukraine (even simply referring to it as a war) which led many international organizations suspending country reports.
The points of sale that remained did so under censorshipwith restricted language and punishment for contradicting the government. According to Reporters Without Borders, journalists have also been targeted while reporting from Ukraine, and eight were killed within the first six months of the war.
Russian authorities have made high-profile arrests of American citizens before, often for inflated or spurious reasons. On February 17, 2022, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities arrested WNBA player Brittney Griner after vaping cartridges were found with a small amount of hash oil They were found in his luggage. Griner later pleaded guilty to drug charges and was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony. The case was widely seen as a political movement to pressure about the United States, which had promised aid to Ukraine. Griner was later freed in a prisoner exchange with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Gershkovich is the first journalist in more than 30 years to be detained in Russia on spying charges. In 1986, US News & World Report reporter Nicholas Daniloff was arrested by the KGB while he was a correspondent in Moscow and was freed 20 days later in a prisoner exchange for a Russian government employee who had been arrested by the FBI.
