(Bloomberg) -- A Russian court sentenced a dual Russian-US citizen and journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to six-and-a-half years in a prison colony on the same day that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage.
Alsu Kurmasheva was found guilty on Friday of publicly disseminating false information about Russia’s military, the state-run Tass news service reported, citing information from the Tatarstan Supreme Court published Monday. Her trial, like Gershkovich’s, was conducted behind closed doors.
Kurmasheva was detained at Kazan airport in Tatarstan in June last year as she attempted to return to Prague where she worked as an editor, her employer said. She had traveled to Russia to attend to a family emergency. Authorities initially charged her with failing to register as a “foreign agent.”
Russia has used the law criminalizing the spread of “fake news” about the country’s army to target critics of President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony at the conclusion of his trial, the first time since the Cold War that Russia had prosecuted a US reporter for espionage. He and the newspaper denied allegations by Russia’s Federal Security Service that he was spying when he was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in March last year.
Other Americans already held in Russia include former US Marine Paul Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in 2020 on spying charges he denies. Another dual citizen, Ksenia Karelina, was detained on treason charges reportedly tied to a charitable donation to benefit Ukraine. In June, US Staff Sergeant Gordon Black was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for theft, the Interfax news service reported.
The Kremlin and the US are negotiating a potential swap of prisoners. Russia has previously suggested it’s seeking the return of Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a former Chechen rebel in Berlin, while Putin earlier said the US was taking energetic steps to secure Gershkovich’s release.
American WNBA star Brittney Griner was exchanged for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in 2022.
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