American reporter’s pretrial custody extended two months in Russia

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain behind bars inside Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison after a court on Tuesday announced it extended his detention.

Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was arrested in Russia this year on spying charges. The Journal and the Biden administration rejected the allegations as baseless.

Tuesday’s hearing was held behind closed doors. The court said his “period of detention” will be extended until Jan. 30, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Mr. Gershkovich was arrested by the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service in March while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in southern Russia. His case marks the first time an American journalist has been arrested in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the arrest of Mr. Gershkovich and said he should be released immediately.

“Every new extension of Evan Gershkovich’s detention is a blow to the freedom of the press in Russia and an attack on the work for foreign correspondents in the country,” Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, said in a statement.