Maria Zakharova alleges US intelligence services continue recruiting agents among journalists contrary to national legislation
MOSCOW
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Friday accused the US intelligence services of using journalists as their agents.
In a statement on Telegram on the occasion of the first anniversary of the arrest of US reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia, Zakharova emphasized that he was caught “red handed” and accused of espionage.
Commenting on the Wall Street Journal’s front page with Gershkovich’s portrait and note: “His story should be here,” Zakharova questioned why the reporter did not cover the topics vitally important for Russia during the years of his work in the country.
Zakharova said Gershkovich could write about Ukraine’s shelling of Russian cities, and killings of colleagues including Oles Buzina, Pavel Sheremet, Andrey Stenin, Aanatoly Klyain, Igor Kornelyuk, Anton Voloshin and many others.
“He could but for some reason did not write about it during all those years that he worked in Russia. He could, if he was doing journalism and not espionage,” she stressed.
Zakharova noted that publishing Gershkovich’s portrait could be the WSJ’s “to demonstrate indignation” to the US intelligence services, which “continue using journalists as their agents contrary to the US laws.”
The spokeswoman stressed that none of the US newspapers published anything in support of another US journalist, Gonzalo Lira, who died in a Ukrainian prison in January 2024.
Zakharova alleged that Lira was tortured and killed by Ukraine’s Special Security Service and questioned whether a criminal case on his death was opened in the US.
Gershkovich, a US citizen working as a correspondent at the newspaper’s Moscow bureau, was arrested by the Federal Security Service in the city of Yekaterinburg in March last year. The agency claimed he was caught “red-handed” while collecting secret information.
During an interview with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson in Moscow in February, President Vladimir Putin said dialogue was ongoing between the Russian and American special services, saying Gershkovich’s return has to be resolved in a “calm, responsible and professional manner.”
