The Moscow City Court rejected another appeal by U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich over his pretrial detention on an espionage charge that he, his employer, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and the U.S. government reject.
The February 20 hearing was held behind closed doors as, according to the court, the case materials contain classified documents. The court ruled that Gershkovich must stay in pretrial detention at least until March 30, which will be exactly one year since his initial arrest in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are both being held in Russia on espionage charges they and the U.S. government reject as politically motivated. While Gershkovich is still in pretrial detention, Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison in June 2020.
A third U.S. citizen, RFERL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who also holds Russian citizenship, has been in pretrial detention for more than four months on charges that the U.S. government and her employer say are reprisals for her work.
SEE ALSO: Court Rejects RFE/RL Journalist Kurmasheva's Request For House Arrest
Russian authorities accuse Gershkovich of collecting state secrets about the military industrial complex at the behest of the U.S. government.
In April last year, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained, which raises the profile of his case and gives the department grounds to act in the interests of the U.S. citizen's release.
Moscow has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States.
U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for having a small amount of cannabis oil in her luggage as she traveled from the United States back to her team in Russia, was exchanged for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. federal prison.
During a recent interview with U.S. commentator Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would be prepared to exchange the Wall Street Journal correspondent for Russians in captivity if an agreement with the United States could be reached. He didn't give any further details.
In 2018, Russia arrested a former U.S. Marine, a Michigan-based corporate security executive, Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian, and Irish citizenship, claiming Whelan was caught with a flash drive containing classified information. In 2020, a Russian court convicted and handed him a lengthy sentence, rejecting his pleas of innocence and statements from Washington that Whelan was not a spy.
The detentions of U.S. citizens in Russia comes at a time when relation between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War over the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.