Evan Gershkovich smiles as he appears in glass cage in Russia to appeal espionage charges | US News

Gershkovich appeared at Moscow City Court behind a glass defendant’s cage wearing a yellow sweater and blue jeans. It was the first time Gershkovich has been seen in public since a hearing in June.

He defiantly smiled for photographers, but was barred from making any statements.

A Moscow court declined to hear his appeal, sending his case back to a lower court due to procedural violations. In the meantime, Gershkovich’s detention at Russia’s notorious Lefertovo Prison will continue until his trial in November.

Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia, was unable to attend the hearing but spoke to the media outside the courthouse.

Tracy also said she had the opportunity to visit Gershkovich in jail for the fourth time last week.

‘Evan is fully aware of the gravity of his situation, yet he remains remarkably strong,’ Tracy said.

The ambassador said that Gershkovich was eager to discuss the news back in the US. He was aware that his family delivered a petition to the United Nations, asking the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to declare him a wrongfully detained person.

The imprisoned journalists also told the ambassador that he has been playing a game of chess with his father by mail.

Gershkovich is a veteran reporter who covered Russia and Ukraine for the New York Times and Agence France-Presse before moving to the Wall Street Journal in 2022.

He was arrested in March 2023 while working on a story about the Russian arms industry in Yekaterinburg, a city about 2,000 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.

He is the first American reporter charged with spying in Russia since Nicholas Daniloff, a US News and World Report correspondent, was arrested by the Soviet Union in 1986.

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