Russian authorities detained a Wall Street journalist in Moscow on espionage charges and released a Russian arms dealer from U.S. custody

The Russian authorities said on Thursday that they had detained an American journalist for The Wall Street Journal and accused him of espionage, marking a new escalation in Moscow’s tensions with the United States and with foreign media organizations since its invasion of Ukraine.

The statement said Gershkovich was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex.

“Until today, there was a hope among foreign correspondents working in Russia that these crackdowns on independent reporting would not extend to them,” said Gulnoza Said, a coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, which monitors press freedoms abroad. “But with these very serious charges, it is clear that any foreign correspondent could be a victim.”

Mr. Gershkovich, 31, grew up in Princeton, N.J., as a child of Soviet émigrés. He has worked for The Journal in Moscow since January 2022; previously, he reported in Russia for Agence France-Presse and for The Moscow Times. He was a news assistant for the New York Times.

According to the spokesman for Putin, he was caught red-handed. Mr. Peskov said he couldn’t give more information.

The Biden administration was concerned about the reporter and contacted the Russian authorities to make sure he was okay.

The correspondents have continued to get accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry, and have been able to operate freely.

Photos and video appeared to show Mr. Gershkovich exiting a court building in Moscow on Thursday afternoon with a jacket hood over his head. He pleaded not guilty to espionage charges, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.

In February 2022 the U.S. and Moscow agreed to a prisoner swap that freed a Russian arms dealer from US custody after he was jailed on a minor drug charge. Moscow freed a Norwegian who had been held for 23 months on accusations of espionage in exchange for two Russian spies.

The prisoner swap that freed a Russian arms dealer from U.S. custody followed a monthslong negotiation between Moscow and Washington for the release of Brittney Griner, an American W.N.B.A. star, after she was held on a drug charge.

American officials have been pushing for the release of Paul Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia for what the US considers to be sham espionage.

On Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, signaled that it was too soon to discuss a swap for Mr. Gershkovich. “Certain exchanges that took place in the past took place for people who were already serving sentences,” Mr. Ryabkov told reporters, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, adding, “Let’s see how this story will develop.”

Mr. Gershkovich’s reports on the Russian military probably attracted the attention of the security services, according to a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center who is based in France.

She said that the arrest would cause a lot of attention in the United States and that the authorities would have to react.

Mr. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, said that the Kremlin was not planning to shut down The Journal’s Moscow bureau. If they have a valid accreditation, they’ll continue to work and carry out normal journalistic activity.

Emma Tucker is the new top editor of the Journal. In 2014, as deputy editor of The Times of London, Ms. Tucker was closely involved in an episode involving two correspondents who had been kidnapped and detained in Syria. One of the journalists, Anthony Loyd, was shot twice in the leg, and the other, the photographer Jack Hill, was beaten up before the men were able to escape.

“As we have seen too often, the arrest of journalists anywhere in the world deprives the public of news that is essential to all of us,” Ms. Rhoades Ha said. She said The Times currently had no reporters in Russia.

The Kremlin succeeded on two fronts. The move further complicates the confrontation between Russia and the United States.

The News Story of Ivan Safronov: Letter to the President and the State of the Nation after the New START Nuclear Arm Reduction Treaty

She said that the person under the cover of journalism was involved in a completely different activity. He is a journalist because of the reports that he had accreditation. No, No, No … this is what he claims to be.”

The state has pursued similar charges against Russian journalists, including the most famous case of Ivan Safronov who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for supposedly revealing classified information.

The Russian state’s ugly, repressive turn has hit ordinary citizens as well as journalists and opposition activists. The man whose daughter drew an anti- war picture at school was sentenced in Russia to two years in prison for online comments critical of Russia. After the man was put under house arrest, his daughter was placed in an orphanage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at a state-of-the-nation address in February that Moscow was suspending its participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. Russia said all nuclear notifications had been suspended — though the US State Department says it has not formally received notice from Russia — further ratcheting up tensions with the US.

In an email to the press, Paul’s brother David said, “Our family is sorry to hear that another American family will have to experience the same trauma that we have had to endure for the past 1,553 days.”

It is a bad assessment of the situation. US-Russian relations are still hitting new lows, but the old wisdom is that it can always be worse.