MOSCOW, Sept 9 (Askume) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently protecting Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovich, the Kremlin said on Monday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovic was convicted of espionage in Russia, a charge that he, his newspaper and Washington have strongly denied. The Kremlin leader was invited to be interviewed when the program was released.
Asked on Monday whether Gershkovic’s request had been answered, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “So far, we are not interested in such an interview.
“To be interviewed by foreign media, and an exclusive interview at that, we need an opportunity. So far, we have not seen any such opportunity.”
Since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many Western journalists have defected from Russia.
Gershkovitch lived outside Russia but continued to travel to the country and was arrested in March 2023 while reporting from the Ural city of Yekaterinburg.
Gershkovitch, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, was sentenced in July to 16 years in prison after a court ruled that he had collected information on orders from the CIA about a company that manufactured Russian tanks.
In February, Putin gave a rare interview to American journalist Tucker Carlson, in which he said Moscow was ready to “fight to the end” for its interests but had no interest in a wider war .
