Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Wall Street Journal correspondent Ivan Geshkovich was arrested in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage, the Interfax news agency reported.

“The FSB prevented the illegal activity of the Russian Foreign Ministry accredited correspondent (…) of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, a citizen of the United States, Ivan Geshkovich,” the FSB said in a statement, cited by the Russian news agencies, specifying that the 32-year-old journalist was suspected of “espionage” for the benefit of Washington.

The newspaper where the arrested man works have not commented.

The FSB statement notes that Geshkovich was tasked “on the American side” with gathering information about “the activities of an operation of the military-defence complex.” However, it provided no evidence to support this claim.

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