Russian Justice keeps American journalist Evan Gershkovich in prison

June 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A court in Moscow has rejected an appeal filed by American journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage, and has ordered that he remain in pretrial detention awaiting trial.

The court has endorsed this Thursday the order issued by another court on May 23, so Gershkovich, correspondent for the newspaper ‘The Wall Street Journal’, must remain behind bars until at least August 30, reports the Russian news agency Interfax.

The process takes place behind closed doors, since the authorities consider some of the materials taken into account to be classified. The court was attended, however, by relatives of the journalist and also diplomatic representatives of the United States, including Ambassador Lynn Tracy.

Washington has demanded on several occasions the release of Gershkovich, arrested on March 29 in the city of Yekaterinburg. Russian authorities accuse him of collecting secret information after he opened investigations into the Wagner Group, a mercenary network involved in the military offensive in Ukraine.

This is the first arrest of an American journalist on Russian soil since the end of the Cold War, at a time marked by political relations between the two powers.