A court in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg has ordered two months of detention for a local activist who was interviewed by Evan Gershkovich and helped the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter before the American journalist was arrested on espionage charges.
The Verkh-Isetsy district court ruled at a closed-door session on April 19 that Yaroslav Shirshikov must stay in pretrial detention until at least June 17 as the case is investigated.
Shirshikov was detained and charged with "justification of terrorism" after police searched his home on April 18.
The charge against the activist stems from his recent post on Telegram in which he called Vladlen Tatarsky, the pen name of prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Maksim Fomin who was killed in an apparent assassination in St. Petersburg in early April, "a thug."
Tatarsky was known for his support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and support for Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Shirshikov wrote on his post that he did not feel sorry about his death.
In his recent interview with Gershkovich, Shirshikov talked about the attitude in Russian society toward the notorious Wagner mercenary group, a private company that has been at the forefront of fighting in Ukraine.
Gershkovich had been reporting on Russia for more than five years at the time of his arrest. He is a fluent Russian-speaker, the son of emigres who left the Soviet Union for the United States during the Cold War.
Shirshikov broke the news about Gershkovich's detention in Yekaterinburg in late March.
Hours before Shirshikov was detained on April 18, the Moscow District Court rejected Gershkovich's appeal to be released from pretrial detention.
The 31-year-old American, The Wall Street Journal, and the United States government have all denied that the fully-accredited journalist was involved in espionage.
If convicted, Shirshikov, a professional public relations expert, may face up to seven years in prison.
In July last year, Shirshikov was fined for openly criticizing the war in Ukraine