A court has convicted Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, of spreading false information about the Russian army and sentenced her to 6 1/2 years in prison after a secret trial, court records and officials said Monday.
The conviction in Kazan, the capital of Russia's central region of Tatarstan, came on Friday, the same day a court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg convicted of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison in a case that the U.S. called politically motivated.
Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old editor for RFE/RL鈥檚 Tatar-Bashkir language service, was convicted of 鈥渟preading false information鈥� about the military after a trial that lasted just two days, according to the website of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan. Court spokesperson Natalya Loseva confirmed Kurmasheva's conviction and revealed the sentence to The Associated Press by phone in the case classified as secret.
Kurmasheva was ordered to serve the sentence in a medium-security penal colony, Loseva said.
鈥淢y daughters and I know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home,鈥� Kurmasheva's husband, Pavel Butorin, said in a post Monday on X.
He had said last year the charges stemmed from a book the Tatar-Bashkir service released in 2022 called 鈥淣o to War鈥� 鈥� 鈥渁 collection of short stories of Russians who don鈥檛 want their country to be at war with Ukraine.鈥� Butorin had said the book doesn鈥檛 contain any 鈥渇alse information.鈥�
Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said Kurmasheva is 小蓝视频 鈥渢argeted by Russian authorities for her uncompromising commitment to speaking the truth and her principled reporting.鈥�
鈥淲e continue to make very clear that she should be released,鈥� Miller added.
Asked about the case, RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus denounced the trial and conviction of Kurmasheva as 鈥渁 mockery of justice.鈥�
鈥淭he only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors,鈥� he said in a statement to the AP.
鈥淚t鈥檚 beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family,鈥� Capus said.
Kurmasheva, who holds U.S. and Russian citizenship and lives in Prague with her husband and two daughters, was taken into custody in October 2023 and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information about the Russian military.
Later, she was also charged with spreading 鈥渇alse information鈥� about the Russian military under legislation that effectively criminalized any public expression about the war in Ukraine that deviates from the Kremlin line. The legislation was adopted in March 2022, just days after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine, and has since been used to target Kremlin critics at home and abroad, implicating scores of people in criminal cases and sending dozens to prison.
Kurmasheva was initially stopped in June 2023 at Kazan International Airport after traveling to Russia the previous month to visit her ailing elderly mother. Officials confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports and fined her for failing to register her U.S. passport. She was waiting for her passports to be returned when she was arrested on new charges in October that year. RFE/RL has repeatedly called for her release.
RFE/RL was told by Russian authorities in 2017 to register as a foreign agent, but it has challenged Moscow鈥檚 use of foreign agent laws in the European Court of Human Rights. The organization has been fined millions of dollars by Russia.
The organization Reporters Without Borders said Kurmasheva's conviction 鈥渋llustrates the unprecedented level of despotism permeating a Russian judiciary that takes orders from the Kremlin.鈥�
It called for Kurmasheva's immediate release and said the purpose of the sentence was to dissuade journalists from traveling to Russia and put pressure on the United States.
In February, RFE/RL was outlawed in Russia as an undesirable organization. Its Tatar-Bashkir service is the only major international news provider reporting in those languages, in addition to Russian, to audiences in the multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority Volga-Urals region.
The swift and secretive trials of Kurmasheva and Gershkovich in Russia鈥檚 raised hopes for a possible prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington. Russia has previously signaled a possible exchange involving Gershkovich, but said a verdict in his case must come first.
Arrests of Americans are in Russia, with nine U.S. citizens known to be detained there as tensions between the two countries have escalated over fighting in Ukraine.
, 32, was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S.
He has been behind bars since his arrest, time that will be counted as part of his sentence. Most of that was in Moscow鈥檚 鈥� a czarist-era lockup used during Josef Stalin鈥檚 purges, when executions were carried out in its basement. He was transferred to Yekaterinburg for the trial.
Gershkovich was the first U.S. journalist arrested on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War. Foreign journalists in Russia were shocked by Gershkovich鈥檚 arrest, even though the country has enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech after sending troops into Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden said after his conviction that Gershkovich 鈥渨as targeted by the Russian government because he is a journalist and an American.鈥�
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield accused Moscow last week of treating 鈥渉uman 小蓝视频s as bargaining chips.鈥� She singled out Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelan, 53, a corporate security director from Michigan, who is serving a 16-year sentence after 小蓝视频 convicted on spying charges that he and the U.S. denied.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that when it comes to Gershkovich, Whelan and other Americans wrongfully detained in Russia and elsewhere, the U.S. is working on the cases 鈥渜uite literally every day.鈥�
Sam Greene of the Center for European Policy Analysis said the conviction and sentencing of Kurmasheva and Gershkovich on the same day 鈥渟uggests 鈥� but does not prove 鈥� that the Kremlin is preparing a deal. More likely, they are preparing to offer up a negotiating table that Washington will find it difficult to ignore.鈥�
In a series of posts on X, Greene stressed that 鈥渢he availability of a negotiating table shouldn鈥檛 be confused with the availability of a deal,鈥� and that Moscow has no interest in releasing its prisoners 鈥� but it is likely to "seek the highest possible price for its bargaining chips, and to seek additional concessions along the way just to keep the talks going.鈥�
Washington 鈥渟hould obviously do what it can鈥� to get Gershkovich, Kurmasheva, imprisoned opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza and other political prisoners out, he said, adding: 鈥淏ut if Moscow demands what it really wants 鈥� the abandonment of Ukraine 鈥� what then?鈥�
Dasha Litvinova, The Associated Press
