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A Wall Street Journal reporter - Evan Gershkovich - has been arrested in Russia and charged with espionage.
The Russian government's Federal Security Service said in a statement: "“It has been established that E. Gershkovich, acting on an assignment from the American side, was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex.”
The Russian Government said that they arrested the reporter while he was "trying to obtain secret information on the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex."
The WSJ has completely denied the allegations.
"The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family," The WSJ's Senior Communications Manager Caitlyn Reuss wrote.
Espionage in Russia carries a maximum jail term of 20 years.
Some news organizations like the BBC have stopped reporting from inside Russia.
Gershkovich joins a growing list of Americans detained in Russia. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told local news agencies that it was too early to discuss prisoner swaps: "I would not even put the question in this plane now, because you understand that some exchanges that happened in the past took place for people who were already serving sentences."
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