After Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced today by Russia to 16 years in prison on charges of espionage, the European Union has strongly opposed the decision.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, in a post on X, said that “Russia uses its politicized legal system to punish journalism.”
Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and charged with spying for the US. He has been behind bars since then.
The 32-year-old was the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986 at the height of the Cold War.
