Thursday Briefing

Evan Gershkovich before his court hearing yesterday.Credit…Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Evan Gershkovich’s trial began in Russia

Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a U.S. citizen, has already endured nearly 15 months in a notorious Moscow prison. Yesterday, his trial finally began.

Gershkovich, 32, is the first Western journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the 1980s. He faces up to 20 years in a penal colony on a spying charge that he, his employer and the U.S. have all called bogus and politically motivated. The Russian authorities haven’t revealed any evidence that he was a spy.

There is little doubt about the outcome of the trial, but there may be hope: a prisoner exchange.

“It’s widely accepted that the Russian state regards his case as leverage to get Russians held in custody — either in the U.S. or in other Western countries,” said my colleague Ivan Nechepurenko, who is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, and has covered Gershkovich’s case.

“There’s going to be this trial, but the more important process will be the ongoing talks between Russian and American intelligence services about a potential prisoner exchange,” Ivan said.

Shortly before the proceedings started, video showed Gershkovich standing in a glass cage and nodding at people in the courtroom. Observers have been barred from attending the trial, which began in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains. Gershkovich’s lawyers have been prohibited from publicly revealing anything they learn.

Ivan said that Gershkovich has a lot of public support, which could turn up the heat on U.S. negotiators, as it did for Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star who was detained in Russia and released in late 2022.