Yekaterinburg (Russia) (AFP) - A Russian court will on Friday hear closing arguments in the expedited espionage trial of US reporter Evan Gershkovich, a case that his employer and the White House have denounced as a sham.

The 32-year-old became the first Western journalist in Russia to be charged with spying since the Soviet era, when he was detained in March 2023 on a reporting trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

He has spent almost 16 months in Russian detention and faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years if found guilty.

After only the second hearing in the closed-door trial at Yekaterinburg’s Sverdlovsk Regional Court Thursday, a court spokesperson said the judge would hear closing arguments in a session set for Friday.

“Tomorrow there will be a hearing at 10:30 (0530 GMT), there will be closing arguments,” Ekaterina Maslennikova, head of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court press service, told AFP outside the court on Thursday.

Thursday’s hearing was moved forward by almost a month at the request of his defence team.

The sudden rapid progress in the case marks a swift change after Gershkovich spent 15 months locked up in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

His pre-trial detention was routinely extended in a series of court hearings in the capital, which Gershkovich attended, standing in a cell or glass cage for defendants.

Journalists did not see Gershkovich during Thursday’s hearing, which was held behind closed doors.

- Exchange talks -

Moscow and Washington have both said they are open to exchanging the Wall Street Journal reporter in a deal, but neither has given clues on when that might happen.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that talks between US and Russian special services over possible prisoner exchanges were ongoing, without naming any specific individuals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has implied he wants to see the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted in Germany of killing a Chechen separatist commander – in what German judges said was an assassination orchestrated by Russian authorities.

The Kremlin has provided no public evidence for the spying allegations against Gershkovich, saying only that he was caught “red-handed” and was working for the US Central Intelligence Agency.

AFP journalists saw a member of the regional parliament, Vyacheslav Vegner – who previously told state media outlets that Gershkovich interviewed him during his reporting trip – leaving the court during Thursday’s hearing.

Prosecutors accuse Gershkovich of spying on Russian tank maker Uralvagonzavod.

Washington has said the claims are fabricated, and a United Nations expert panel declared in July that he was being held arbitrarily.

Gershkovich’s last public appearance in court was on June 26, when he spoke only briefly to greet journalists.

The Russian penitentiary service refused to tell AFP where he would be held after the proceedings or why his head had been shaved.

- ‘The best way he can’ -

Raised in New Jersey and a fluent Russian speaker, Gershkovich had reported from Russia for six years.

In 2017, he moved to the Russian capital to work for an English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, where he produced some of the outlet’s biggest stories on a shoestring budget.

He then worked for AFP before becoming a Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, weeks before the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine.

In the role, he covered how the conflict affected ordinary Russians, sometimes speaking to the families of dead soldiers.

Even after dozens of other Western reporters left Russia following its Ukraine offensive and the introduction of strict military censorship laws, he continued visits there on reporting assignments.

There has been a major campaign to release Gershkovich, who spent more than a year in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison following his arrest.

“He is managing the best way he can,” his mother, Ella Milman, told The Wall Street Journal in March.

Russia holds other American citizens in its jails, including marine Paul Whelan, held for more than five years on spying charges; and US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, detained last year while visiting family.

On Thursday, a Moscow court sentenced former US paratrooper and rock musician Michael Travis Leake to 13 years in prison on charges of drug dealing.

The White House has warned US citizens still in the country to “depart immediately” due to the risk of wrongful arrest.