Russia arrests journalist from The Wall Street Journal and accuses him of espionage

Authorities in Russia on Thursday detained journalist Evan Gershkovich, who works for the U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal, for alleged espionage activitiesas confirmed by the Federal Security Service (FSB).
“The FSB has stopped the illegal activities of US citizen Evan Gershkovich.born in 1991 and a correspondent for the Moscow bureau of the daily newspaper The Wall Street Journalaccredited to the Russian Foreign Ministry, on suspicion of espionage on behalf of the U.S. government,” he said.
Thus, he stressed that the journalist, who has been detained in the city of Yekaterinburg and faces a possible up to 20 years in prisonThe Russian military-industrial complex is suspected of “acting on orders from the United States to collect information constituting state secrets on the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex”.

The journalist had reportedly been gathering information on the Wagner Groupowned by oligarch Yevgeni Prigozhin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has sent mercenaries to Ukraine. Gershkovich’s latest article published by The Wall Street Journal dates from March 28 under the headline ‘Russia’s economy is beginning to crumble’.
Gershkovich previously worked for the French news agency. AFP and the Russian newspaper The Moscow Times. Also, has published in The New York Times, The Economist, MIT Technology Review, Foreign Policy y Politico Europeamong other media, according to its website.