Wall Street Journal journalist and US citizen Evan Gershkovich was convicted to sixteen years in a Russian jail on espionage charges. The exact day, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist who carries dual American-Russian citizenship, was convicted for six and a half years by a Russian tribunal for supposedly spreading inaccurate information about the Russian army. Both trials took place mainly behind sealed doors under a cloak of secrecy.

Gershkovich is the first US correspondent to be sentenced in Russia on charges of espionage since the Cold War. So far, the Russian officers have not provided any credible proof to support their accusations. Kurmasheva was sentenced on a charge frequently employed by the Kremlin to suppress negative reporting on the facts of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The detention of two US journalists draws a new escalation in the Kremlin’s conflict with the West. Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor Emma Tucker unleashed a statement calling Gershkovich’s sentence “a wretched, sham conviction.” RFE/RL President and CEO Steve Capus believed Kurmasheva’s conviction was “a mockery of justice.”

US residents Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are now confronting the prospect of long prison sentences in particularly harsh conditions. An AP series issued earlier this year represented the “physical and psychological pressure, slumber deprivation, insufficient nutrition, health care that is inadequate or simply refused” and “dizzying set of arbitrary laws” that the pair are probably to encounter in Russian prisons. Both journalists have already finished an extended period in pretrial custody.

The Russian sources have a long record of targeting reporters. These efforts have achieved further momentum since February 2022 and the full-scale attack on Ukraine, with the Kremlin using draconian new rulings to silence anti-war voices and shut down any remaining separated Russian media outlets. In May 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Office said that the number of journalists detained in Russia had reached an all-time high.

While the Putin regime is infamous for seeking to censor the media, that may not be the main motive in this case. Instead, there has been general speculation that the Kremlin ultimately seeks to use Gershkovich and Kurmasheva as bargaining fragments in negotiations with the US to ensure the release of Russian citizens currently fitting prison sentences in the West.

Putin is no suspicion well aware that the United States will go to multiple lengths to free the two American journalists. Following Gershkovich’s conviction, the White House noted that the US government has “no higher stress” than seeking the freedom and safe return of Gershkovich “and all Americans mistakenly detained and held hostage abroad.”

Inference about a potential prisoner exchange has swirled ever since Gershkovich was first imprisoned in 2023. Typically, Russia only encounters prisoner exchanges once suspects have been sentenced and punished. This has led some analysts to indicate that the relative speed of the two recent trials could suggest the Kremlin’s desire to move with an exchange shortly.

Moscow will likely require a high price for the emancipation of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva. This may contain handing over Vadim Krasikov, a Russian secret service colonel who is currently conforming a life penalty in Germany for gunning down a Chechen dissenter in a Berlin park in 2019. Sentencing Krasikov in 2021, a Berlin tribunal called the slaying“a state-ordered murder.”

US Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin stated Gershkovich’s trial and conviction were “stark reminders of the heights to which tyrants like Putin will leverage blameless people as bargaining chips, suppress free speech, and conceal the truth.” While many now hope a prisoner swap to take place shortly rather than later, the targeting of US reporters in this manner highlights the Kremlin’s withdrawal from international norms and highlights the potential dangers facing any Western nationals who desire to visit Putin’s Russia.