MOSCOW AP - Russia's top security agency says a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.
The Federal Security Service FSB, the top domestic security and counterintelligence agency of the Soviet era KGB, said Wednesday that Evan Gershkovich was detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while trying to obtain classified information.
Gershkovich is the first reporter for an American news outlet to have been arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. His arrest comes amid the bitter tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fighting in Ukraine. Gershkovich was acting on U.S. orders to collect information about the activities of one of the Russian military industrial complexes that is a state secret, according to the security service. The FSB didn't say when the arrest took place. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage. Gershkovich is a correspondent in the Moscow bureau of the Wall Street Journal, covering Russia and Ukraine. He had accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist. His last report from Moscow focused on the Russian economy s slowdown after Western sanctions were imposed when Russian troops entered Ukraine last year. The publisher of the report, MarketWatch, is owned by the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Dow Jones.