AMERICANS have been urged to leave Russia immediately after a Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested on suspicion of spying.
Evan Gershkovich, 31, has been accused of espionage after covering Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s economic collapse.
Gershkovich was detained in the remote city of Yekaterinburg and is being held by Putin’s FSB security service.
It marks the most serious public move against a foreign journalist since Russia invaded Ukraine.
On Thursday, the United States once again issued a warning to all Americans living in or travelling to Russia to leave immediately.
Russia has accused Gershkovich of trying to obtain military secrets about a factory – but it has not named the factory and it has so far not provided any evidence to back up its allegation.
The journalist was reportedly held at a restaurant and bundled into a car by plain-clothed officers with a sweater pulled over his head.
He later appeared in court in Moscow, where he pleaded not guilty to espionage.
Gershkovich was seen being led into a van by guards from the Lefortovsky court in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reports that he will be transported to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, an FSB pre-trial detention facility.
The prison is notorious for its harsh conditions and thousands were shot or tortured to death there during Joseph Stalin’s ‘Great Terror’ of the 1930s, say Russian human rights campaigners.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in jail.
He is the first reporter for an American news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War.
Russia has been accused in the past of arresting Americans to use in barter exchanges for Russians detained in the US.
US basketball star Brittney Griner was held on drug smuggling charges but then swapped for international arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Opponents of Putin, most notably Alexei Navalny, have also found themselves thrown into jail on cooked-up charges.
Gershkovich reports on Russia as part of the Journal’s Moscow bureau and is accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country’s foreign ministry, the FSB said.
Fears were raised about Gershkovich when he failed to make contact with his office.
A spokesperson for the paper said: “The Wall Street Journal is deeply concerned for the safety of Mr. Gershkovich.”