US Ambassador to Russia Meets Jailed Wall Street Journal Reporter Gershkovich

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March while on a reporting trip and accused of espionage, stands behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his detention, in Moscow on June 22, 2023. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuter)

The United States ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was able to visit detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for the second time in Moscow on July 3, the State Department announced.

“Ambassador Tracy reports that Mr. Gershkovich is in good health and remains strong, despite his circumstances,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times following Monday’s visit.

Tracy was last able to visit Gershkovich on April 17.

“U.S. Embassy officials will continue to provide all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family, and we expect Russian authorities to provide continued consular access,” the statement continued.

“Mr. Gershkovich is wrongfully detained and the charges against him are baseless. We call on the Russian Federation to immediately release him.”

Monday’s meeting marks Tracy’s second with the journalist since he was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on espionage charges in March.

The Moscow-based correspondent was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, roughly 900 miles east of Moscow, while allegedly reporting on the Wagner mercenary group.

At the time, the FSB said it had “thwarted the illegal activities” of Gershkovich, who it said was “suspected of spying in the interests of the American government.”

“It was established that Evan Gershkovich, acting at the request of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex,” the security and counterintelligence agency said. “The foreigner was detained in Yekaterinburg while attempting to obtain classified information,” it added.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow on June 22, 2023. (Dmitry Serebryakov/AP Photo)

Gershkovich is being held at Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, a former KGB prison known for its harsh conditions, making him the first Western journalist to be detained in Russia since the Soviet era.

He faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.

Both Gershkovich and his employer, The Wall Street Journal, have vehemently denied the allegations.

“Evan is a member of the free press who, right up until he was arrested, was engaged in newsgathering,” The Wall Street Journal said in a statement issued in April. “Any suggestions otherwise are false.”

The U.S. government has also declared the reporter wrongfully detained and urged Russian authorities to release him immediately.

In April, Washington imposed sanctions on the FSB, the top domestic security and counterintelligence agency that succeeded the Soviet-era KGB, over its wrongful detention of Gershkovich and a number of other American citizens.

The latest meeting between U.S. Ambassador Tracy and Gershkovich comes after a Moscow court on June 22 rejected the reporter’s appeal to be released from prison while awaiting trial, with the judge ordering instead that he remain behind bars until at least late August, in line with a previous court decision.

‘Hostage Diplomacy’

Following that ruling, Tracy accused Moscow of conducting “hostage diplomacy” amid deteriorating relations between the Washington and Moscow in the wake of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

While Moscow last year agreed to release American basketball star Brittney Griner—who was sentenced in Russia on a drug charge—in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer, it has declined to provide such an exchange for Gershkovich’s until a verdict is reached in his case.

So far, no date has been announced for his trial.

Amid renewed calls to release Gershkovich, the State Department, on Monday, also urged Russian authorities to release Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and Michigan corporate security executive serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony on espionage charges.

Whelan was detained in Moscow in 2018 and has also been described by U.S. authorities as “wrongfully detained,” while his family has called the charges baseless.

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, who was arrested for alleged spying, listens to the verdict in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, on June 15, 2020.  (Sofia Sandurskaya, Moscow News Agency photo via AP)

Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at a Council on Foreign Relations event that the U.S. government is continuously working to bring home various U.S. citizens wrongfully detained in Russia but stressed that there is “more to be done.”

“In each of these instances, it’s not surprising that there’s usually an incredibly challenged relationship with the country in question and maybe even one that’s directly antagonistic,” Blinken said.

“That doesn’t stop us from working separately and independently to try to bring people home. And as you’ve seen, we’ve had some success with that even with countries where we have—where we’re really at odds. So I can tell you this:  We will continue to do that,” he concluded.

Reuters contributed to this report.