Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for @WSJ - Wall Street Journal - who has been living in Moscow for six years, has been detained in Yekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage. An important Thread 🧵 @evangershkovich
The #FSB believes that the journalist "was collecting information on behalf of the United States about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constitutes a state secret."
This is, of course, shocking. Let's wait to see what the FSB specifically presents, but it appears that they have taken a hostage.
There are many people that could be exchanged: for example, Vladislav Klyushin, who was not swapped in the last exchange (by the way, the last exchange itself could have given the #Kremlin a taste of success and fueled a desire to take new hostages)…
… Vadim Krasikov in Germany, as well as some illegals in other countries (Moscow believes that Washington can deal with this).
The problem is that the recently updated Russian legislation and the FSB's interpretation of espionage today allow for the imprisonment of anyone who is simply interested in military affairs;
that is, writes about the war against Ukraine, private military companies, the state of affairs in the army, the equipment of troops with ammunition, military tactics and strategy...
The act of "collecting information," which can simply involve collecting comments from experts or searching for information on the internet, is sufficient to bring charges.
Interestingly, the FSB evasively claims that Evan was acting "on behalf of the Americans," which can be interpreted very broadly. The editorial board of @WSJ is also American.
This suggests that the FSB has no evidence to indicate that Evan was specifically working as a spy undercover as a journalist. However, this undoubtedly brings #Russia and the #UnitedStates' relationship to a new level of confrontation.
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