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The Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich.

Reuters

US reporter charged with espionage in Russia: Will foreign reporters now flee?

Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter working in Moscow for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested last week. One day after co-authoring a bombshell report on how Western sanctions were finally taking a toll on the Russian economy, Gershkovich was pulled last Wednesday from a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains, by Russian authorities. He was charged with espionage and could face up to 20 years in jail.

This marks the first time since 1986 that a US journalist has been accused of spying in Russia. The Journal, along with dozens of other media outlets, the Biden administration, and the Committee to Protect Journalists are demanding Gershkovich’s immediate release. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with his Russian counterpart on the matter. But things look bleak for the 31-year-old, whose parents fled the former Soviet Union, before settling in New Jersey.

GZERO sat down with New York-based Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, to get her take on what comes next, how Western media firms might react to this event, the risks journalists face in Russia, and what this means for future coverage of the war in Ukraine. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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