Russian court jails US reporter for 16 years for spying

Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the US, and has been behind bars ever since.

He was the first US journalist taken into custody on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War.

Gershkovich's arrest shocked foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country has enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech after sending troops into Ukraine.

His trial began on June 26 in Yekaterinburg after he spent about 15 months in in Moscow's notorious Lefortovo Prison.

The Russian prosecutor-general's office accused the journalist of "gathering secret information" on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a plant north of Yekaterinburg that produces and repairs tanks and other military equipment.

Gershkovich's employer and US officials have dismissed the charges as phoney.

Arrests of Americans are increasingly common in Russia, with nine US citizens known to be detained there as tensions between the two countries have escalated over fighting in Ukraine.