WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Friday said the U.S. will impose costs on Russia for attempting to use Americans as bargaining chips while making a statement to mark the one-year anniversary of the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s in Russia.
Gershkovich, 32, is the first U.S. journalist apprehended on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War when he was taken into custody by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on March 29 last year.
Biden in a statement released by the White House termed the detention of the journalist as completely unjust and illegal.
He said that US will continue to condemn the act and impose costs for Russia’s attempts to use American citizens as bargaining chips.
The US government, the reporter and the Journal all deny Gershkovich is a spy. The FSB, the main successor to the KGB, said Gershkovich had been trying to get Russian military secrets.
He has been under custody for a year at Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison, which is closely linked with the FSB, and his detention has been extended, to June 30.
The U.S. leaders in Congress from both parties including Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson also issued a joint statement on Friday terming the journalist’s arrest unjust and baseless.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Gershkovich’s arrest had made Russia’s more oppressive.
In their statements Biden and Blinken also denounced the detention of Paul Whelan, former Marine arrested in Moscow in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison on spying charges in 2020.
Biden said the US government is with Evan, Paul Whelan, and all those Americans who are being held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.
