Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared in a Russian court Wednesday to face a false accusation of espionage in a secret trial, as a senior Kremlin official told reporters that Moscow was open to the possibility of a prisoner-swap deal that would send him home.
The 32-year-old American journalist has been imprisoned since March of last year, when he was arrested by the country’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, while on a reporting assignment in Yekaterinburg, around 900 miles east of Moscow.
Gershkovich, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny the accusations against him. The U.S. has designated him as “wrongfully detained” and has called for his immediate release.
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