Washington, 8 April 2023 (dpa/MIA) - The Russian arrest of US journalist Evan Gershkovich drew a rare joint statement from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who demanded the reporter’s immediate release.

The US Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders said the March 29 jailing of Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was “wrongful” and marked the latest transgression in Russia’s “long and disturbing history of unjustly detaining US citizens.”

“Let there be no mistake: journalism is not a crime,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, and McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said in the statement on Friday.

“We demand the baseless, fabricated charges against Mr Gershkovich be dropped and he be immediately released,” they added, “and reiterate our condemnation of the Russian government’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices.”

Gershkovich, 31, was taken into custody in Yekaterinburg on charges of espionage, the first Russian arrest of an American journalist on spying charges since the Cold War, according to The Journal.

The arrest of a member of the diminished American press corps in Russia further chilled the frosty relationship between Washington and Moscow and seemed to signal a willingness by the Kremlin to cleave its thinning links to Western media.

The Journal has denied the charges against Gershkovich. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said there is “no doubt” Gershkovich has been wrongfully detained.

Gershkovich, a son of Soviet emigrants, worked as a news assistant at The New York Times and as a reporter for The Moscow Times and Agence France-Presse before joining The Journal. He studied at Bowdoin College.

He has denied his guilt, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. Tass reported Friday that Gershkovich had been formally charged.

Schumer and McConnell said in their statement that “Russian authorities have failed to present any credible evidence to justify their fabricated charges.”

They also said the U.S. embassy has been denied consular access to Gershkovich in what they described as a “likely” violation of international law.

Since President Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s bloody war on Ukraine 13 months ago, the US has hammered the Kremlin with sanctions and committed more than $30 billion toward protecting Ukraine.

A week before the war began, Brittney Griner, a WNBA star, was arrested at a Moscow-area airport. Customs officials reported spying cannabis oil in her luggage.

Griner was freed in a December prisoner swap. The U.S. released Viktor Bout, a shadowy Russian arms dealer convicted in Manhattan Federal Court a decade ago, in return for the 6-foot-9 basketball player.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine jailed in Russia in 2018 and later sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, remains in Russia. He denies the charges.

“The Kremlin should release Mr Whelan and Mr Gershkovich now,” Schumer and McConnell said in their statement.