The Latest: War in Ukraine: Finland Clears Last Hurdle to Join NATO, Reshaping Balance of Power

The Russian Federal Safety Service, or F.S.B., stated in a press release that Mr. Gershkovich “is suspected of spying within the pursuits of the American authorities” and had been detained in Yekaterinburg, a metropolis about 900 miles east of Moscow within the Ural Mountains. Hours later, the Kremlin endorsed Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest.

“We’re not speaking about suspicions,” Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, stated, including, “He was caught red-handed.” Mr. Peskov stated he couldn’t present additional particulars.

The detention is an ominous signal for the rights of overseas journalists primarily based in Russia. The Wall Avenue Journal strongly rejected the accusations towards Mr. Gershkovich and stated it might search his speedy launch. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his household,” the newspaper stated in a press release.

President Biden was briefed on Mr. Gershkovich’s detention and the secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, stated he was “deeply involved.” State Division officers had contacted Russian authorities to safe entry to the reporter and examine on his welfare.

“The concentrating on of Americans by the Russian authorities is unacceptable,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White Home press secretary, stated in a press release. “We condemn the detention of Mr. Gershkovich within the strongest phrases. We additionally condemn the Russian authorities’s continued concentrating on and repression of journalists and freedom of the press.”

Mr. Gershkovich, 31, grew up in Princeton, N.J., as a toddler of Soviet émigrés. He has labored for The Journal in Moscow since January 2022; beforehand, he reported in Russia for Agence France-Presse and for The Moscow Occasions. Earlier than that, he was a information assistant for The New York Occasions, primarily based in New York.

No Western journalist has been tried on espionage costs in Russia in recent times. However in March 2022, many overseas information organizations, together with The Occasions, quickly eliminated their reporters from the nation after harsh new legal guidelines nearly outlawed some types of impartial reporting after the invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, correspondents — together with Mr. Gershkovich — continued to obtain accreditation from the Russian Overseas Ministry and had typically been capable of function freely.

However American journalists, specifically, have been involved a few state of affairs just like the one now unfolding with Mr. Gershkovich: that Russian authorities would possibly detain a correspondent from a U.S.-based group amid the bigger tensions between the 2 nations. In some previous espionage instances, Russia has detained foreigners to instigate prisoner exchanges with the West.

“Till at this time, there was a hope amongst overseas correspondents working in Russia that these crackdowns on impartial reporting wouldn’t prolong to them,” stated Gulnoza Mentioned, a coordinator on the Committee to Defend Journalists, which screens press freedoms overseas. “However with these very critical costs, it’s clear that any overseas correspondent might be a sufferer.”

“The state of affairs was frozen,” she added, “and now it received worse. Everyone working in Russia knew it might occur, however everybody hoped it might not.”

Mr. Gershkovich faces as much as 20 years in jail beneath Russia’s prison code. Espionage trials within the nation can take months and are usually carried out in secret. Acquittals are nearly unheard-of.

Photographs and video appeared to indicate Mr. Gershkovich exiting a courtroom constructing in Moscow on Thursday afternoon with a jacket hood over his head. He pleaded not responsible to espionage costs, the Russian state information company Tass reported.

The detention of Brittney Griner, an American W.N.B.A. star, on a minor drug cost in February 2022 set off a monthslong negotiation between Moscow and Washington for her launch, culminating in a prisoner swap that freed a Russian arms seller from U.S. custody. In 2019, in change for 2 convicted Russian spies in Lithuania, Moscow freed a Norwegian man who had been held for 23 months on accusations of espionage.

American officers have additionally pushed for the discharge of Paul Whelan, a former Marine who has been held in Russia since 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in jail for what the US considers sham espionage costs.

On Thursday, Russia’s deputy overseas minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, signaled that it was too quickly to debate a swap for Mr. Gershkovich. “Sure exchanges that came about previously came about for individuals who have been already serving sentences,” Mr. Ryabkov instructed reporters, in accordance with the Russian information company Interfax, including, “Let’s see how this story will develop.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Middle who relies in France, stated that Mr. Gershkovich’s reporting on the Russian navy was what had most definitely attracted the eye of the Russian safety companies, including that they in all probability noticed a chance to achieve a brand new negotiating chip.

“I believe that it’s going to appeal to a whole lot of consideration politically in the US in order that the authorities must react,” she stated, including that his arrest “places the Kremlin in an advantageous place.”

A spokeswoman for The New York Occasions, Danielle Rhoades Ha, stated on Thursday that Mr. Gershkovich’s protection of Russia “has been unfailingly truthful and correct.”

“As we have now seen too usually, the arrest of journalists anyplace on the planet deprives the general public of reports that’s important to all of us,” Ms. Rhoades Ha stated. She stated The Occasions at present had no reporters in Russia.

Mr. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, stated that the Kremlin was not planning to close down The Journal’s Moscow bureau. “These which might be finishing up regular journalistic exercise, if they’ve a sound accreditation, then in fact they’ll proceed to work,” he stated.

The Journal just lately named a brand new high editor, Emma Tucker. In 2014, as deputy editor of The Occasions of London, Ms. Tucker was carefully concerned in an episode involving two correspondents who had been kidnapped and detained in Syria. One of many journalists, Anthony Loyd, was shot twice within the leg, and the opposite, the photographer Jack Hill, was overwhelmed up earlier than the boys have been capable of escape.

“We’re very involved for the security of Evan and can hold you knowledgeable of the state of affairs,” Ms. Tucker wrote in a Thursday memo to her employees.

Victoria Kim and Katie Rogers contributed reporting.