U.S. ENVOY MEETS WITH JAILED REPORTER
The U.S. ambassador to Russia met with Evan Gershkovich, the jailed American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, in Lefortovo Prison in Moscow on Monday, the State Department said hours after their talk.
The visit by the ambassador, Lynne Tracy, marked the third time she had met with Gershkovich since he was detained by the Russian authorities in March.
“Ambassador Tracy said that Evan continues to appear in good health and remains strong, despite his circumstances,” the State Department said in a written statement.
U.S. officials have said that their Russian counterparts are blocking them from getting regular consular access to Gershkovich, the first American journalist arrested on an espionage charge in Russia since the end of the Cold War.
Relations between the U.S. and Russia are at their lowest point in decades following the decision by President Vladimir Putin to start a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Analysts say Russian officials under Putin likely detained
Gershkovich in hopes of effecting a prisoner swap with the United States.
Russian officials are holding Gershkovich on an accusation of spying even though he is a journalist with accreditation from Russia’s Foreign Ministry and despite the fact he was doing reporting at the time of his detention.
Agents from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, detained Gershkovich on March 29 while he was on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg in the Urals region.
The Wall Street Journal
and Gershkovich’s family have denied any accusation that he is a spy, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in April that he had been wrongfully detained.
In December, President Joe Biden agreed to release Viktor Bout, an imprisoned Russian weapons dealer, in exchange for the freedom of Brittney Griner, an American basketball star, nearly 10 months after Griner was detained in Moscow on accusations of drug smuggling and possession.