An American Is Drawn Into Putin’s War on Journalism

Evan Gershkovich, the 31-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter arrested by Russian authorities on charges of espionage, has been declared “wrongfully detained” by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, suggesting that U.S. officials hope he might be traded, like a hostage, for some Russian prisoner.

“Journalism is not a crime,” a State Department spokesman said of the young reporter’s arrest.

The problem is, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it often is a crime. In declaring Gershkovich a foreign spy, Putin may have been looking not for a token in a prisoner-exchange, but for an example to deter...