Yekaterinburg (Russia) (AFP) - US reporter Evan Gershkovich’s closed-door espionage trial in Russia began Wednesday, 15 months after he was arrested on charges that he, his newspaper and the White House reject as false and baseless.

Hours after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter was brought into court in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, Washington said it was doing everything it could to secure his release. A senior Russian diplomat urged the United States to “seriously consider the signals” Moscow had sent its way over a possible swap deal.

Gershkovich, 32, became the first Western journalist to be arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War when he was detained in March 2023 on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg.

On Wednesday, he was briefly shown to reporters in the city’s Sverdlovsk Regional Court, smiling while standing in a glass cage with a completely shaved head.

He was then taken away for the start of the trial, held in private as is typical for espionage cases in Russia.

The WSJ on Wednesday slammed the proceedings as a “sham trial”, and his family called on the White House to push for his release.

Russia’s penitentiary service refused to disclose to AFP where Gershkovich would be held before the next hearing, set for August 13.

The Kremlin has provided no public evidence for the spying allegations, saying only that he was caught “red-handed” and was working for the CIA. Washington says the claims are fabricated.

- ‘Journalism is not a crime’ -

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in a penal colony.

Gershkovich has already spent almost 15 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison since his arrest.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that Moscow was holding Gershkovich as a “bargaining chip” to secure the release of Russians jailed abroad.

“Evan has never been employed by the United States government. Evan is not a spy. Journalism is not a crime, and Evan should never have been detained in the first place,” Kirby said.

That was also the message from Gershkovich’s family and his employer.

“Evan is a journalist, and journalism is not a crime. We urge the US government to continue to do everything possible to bring Evan home now,” his family said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It’s jarring to see him in yet another courtroom for a sham trial held in secret and based on fabricated accusations,” WSJ publisher Almar Latour and editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.

He denounced the proceedings as “an unfathomable attack on the free press”.

- Exchange ‘signals’ -

Kirby said the US was doing “everything it can” to try to secure the release of both Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American jailed in Russia on spying charges Washington also says are fabricated.

As the trial opened, a top Russian diplomat said Moscow had sent “signals” to the United States about a possible exchange deal.

The US “should still seriously consider the signals that they in Washington received through the relevant channels,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies, without elaborating.

Kirby said diplomacy between the US and Russia was “alive”, but declined to go into details about the state of the negotiations.

The Kremlin also declined to comment on talks over a possible deal.

President Vladimir Putin has hinted he wants to see Gershkovich freed as part of a deal involving the release of a Russian man jailed in Germany for killing an exiled Chechen separatist commander.

But Russia has previously said it would consider an exchange only after a verdict has been handed down.

Gershkovich’s parents, who fled repression in the Soviet Union and settled in the United States in the 1970s, told AFP this year that they were counting on a “very personal promise” from US President Joe Biden to bring him home.

Russia has arrested several US citizens in what Washington sees as politically motivated cases in recent years.

Whelan has been in prison for more than five years and another journalist, US-Russian citizen Alsu Kurmasheva is in pre-trial detention after being arrested last year while visiting family.

- ‘Best way he can’ -

Raised in New Jersey and a fluent Russian speaker, Gershkovich reported from Russia for six years since moving there in 2017.

He continued to undertake reporting trips after dozens of other Western journalists left following Russia’s offensive on Ukraine and the introduction of strict military censorship laws.

He first worked in the Russian capital for small English-language paper The Moscow Times, before a stint with AFP’s Moscow bureau.

He joined the WSJ just weeks before the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine.

There has been a major international campaign to release Gershkovich, with many of his supporters praising his resilience while behind bars.

“He is managing the best way he can,” his mother, Ella Milman, told the WSJ in March.