Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved the arrest of the American correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, Bloomberg reports citing sources familiar with the situation.
According to the agency's interlocutors, the initiative to arrest Gershkovich came from high-ranking officials of the Russian special services. Journalists are confident that the president made the final decision on the arrest, as the special services report directly to him.
Sources believe that this decision is a sign of the growing influence of people in the Kremlin who demand a harsher confrontation with the United States.
Alina Polyakova, head of the European Policy Analysis Center in Washington, told the agency that the incident should be a "warning signal" not only for the United States but for the entire West: "This shows that Putin is stable and in the opinion that there will be no return to trustful relations," said Polyakova.
According to Bloomberg, Russian authorities may try to exchange Evan Gershkovich with businessman Vladislav Klyushin. Klyushin was accused of hacking into the computer networks of a company in the United States and collecting information about sales worth tens of millions of dollars. As the agency wrote, Russia previously demanded to include Klyushin in the exchange of prisoners.
Journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested at the end of March in Yekaterinburg on espionage charges. At the time, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSS) claimed that it allegedly collected classified information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex. According to Meduza, before his arrest, Gershkovich went to the city of Nizhny Tagil, where the "Uralvagonzavod" defense plant is located. Two more people were arrested along with him - a couple from Nizhny Tagil who worked at "Uralvagonzavod".
In April, the US State Department declared Gershkovich "wrongfully detained," opening the door to extradition negotiations.
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