The American journalist Evan Gershkovich was in court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on Wednesday – 15 months after his arrest. He is being charged on unclear grounds for espionage and risks 20 years in prison.
99 per cent are convicted, says Russia expert Carolina Vendil Pallin.
The American Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia in March 2023. Since then, he has been imprisoned. Wednesday's trial, which was held behind closed doors, lasted for two hours and will resume on 13 August.
Emma Tucker, editor-in-chief of Wall Street Journal, has repeatedly claimed that Gershkovich is a pawn in a larger game. Both the newspaper and the White House dismiss the allegations as fabricated.
I think it's clear that (Evan) was picked up with the intention of being exchanged. Evan is a hostage. He is a bargaining chip and Putin holds him as currency, said Tucker to BBC earlier this year.
The Kremlin has repeatedly hinted that they want something – or rather someone – in exchange for Gershkovich. Several times, Vadim Krasikov has been mentioned as the person the Kremlin wants to have back. Krasikov is serving a life sentence in Germany for shooting a Chechen man in Berlin in 2019. But releasing Krasikov is up to Germany, not the USA.
Journalists under threat
Carolina Vendil Pallin, a Russia expert at the Total Defence Research Institute (FOI), believes that Gershkovich's case is about more than just hostage diplomacy.
Everyone who practises independent journalism lives under threat in Russia.
She expects him to be convicted.
99 per cent of those charged with espionage are convicted, it's extremely rare to be acquitted. The chance of getting a fair trial is non-existent if the state drives the case.
She continues:
Nowadays, it's even dangerous for defence lawyers in Russia. Several of the now-deceased Russian opposition politician Aleksey Navalny's defence lawyers have been imprisoned.
"Death merchant" exchanged
In recent years, Russia has imprisoned several American citizens, including the Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. Several analysts describe it as the country "collecting" people with American citizenship, with the aim of making prisoner exchanges.
In fact, Russia and the USA have made exchanges before. In December 2022, the American basketball player Brittney Griner was exchanged for the convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor But, also known as the "death merchant". At the time, he was serving a 25-year prison sentence in the USA.
A guilty verdict will neither increase nor decrease Gershkovich's chances of being exchanged, believes Vendil Pallin.
The attention to his case doesn't harm Russia. The Kremlin already considers the country to be in a long-term confrontation with the West. I don't think it will make a difference for Gershkovich's value as an exchange object, since we know he will be convicted.
Evan Gershkovich, born 1991, is an American journalist who has been reporting from and about Russia since 2017.
His parents fled separately to the USA from the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. They met in Detroit, Michigan, and later moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where the couple's two children grew up.
When Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg on 29 March 2023, he was working for the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal. He has previously worked for The New York Times, The Moscow Times, and the news agency AFP.
He has been held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison awaiting trial.
Russia's Foreign Ministry claims that he was caught "red-handed" when he tried to obtain classified information about Russian military or military facilities. According to media reports, he was working on an article about the paramilitary Wagner group when he was arrested.
The Wall Street Journal and the White House have rejected the allegations against Gershkovich.
