Russia has formally charged Wall Avenue Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich with espionage, based on Russian state information businesses Tass and Interfax, citing legislation enforcement forces.

Gershkovich, 31, “categorically denied all accusations, stating he was engaged in journalistic actions in Russia”, Tass reported on Friday, citing an unidentified supply who declined to remark additional because the journalist’s case is marked “prime secret”.

Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB) introduced the fees every week after the US citizen was detained throughout a reporting journey to Ekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural Mountains area. He was later arrested, “suspected of espionage within the pursuits of the American authorities”, allegations that would carry a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail.

The FSB has but to remark formally on the fees.

The reporter is being held in pre-trial detention on the FSB’s Lefortovo jail in Moscow, a facility the place Russia holds most suspects in espionage circumstances.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian jail colony on comparable fees, was additionally initially held there.

Russia has not supplied consular entry to Gershkovich, which White Home spokesman John Kirby referred to as “inexcusable”.

US officers and the WSJ vehemently deny the fees. US president Joe Biden and dozens of reports organisations have referred to as for his quick launch.

The arrest of Gershkovich, the New Jersey-born son of Soviet émigrés, has plunged already dangerous relations between Moscow and Washington to a post-cold warfare low. He’s the primary US journalist to be detained by Russia since 1986.

On Thursday, the US ambassador to Russia Lynne T Tracy mentioned Gershkovich with deputy international minister Sergei Ryabkov in Moscow. The minister reiterated that “critical allegations have been introduced in opposition to” the journalist and that he had been “detained red-handed”.

The “hype” about Gershkovich’s case within the US was “pointless” and “hopeless”, Ryabkov mentioned.

In accordance with the WSJ, a court docket in Moscow introduced on Thursday that it might hear an attraction from Gershkovich’s legal professionals over his detention.