Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will appear in court for the second hearing in his trial on espionage charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny.

The trial is taking place behind closed doors in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains where the 32-year-old journalist was detained while on a reporting trip.

At the first hearing in June, the court had adjourned until August 13, but Gershkovich’s lawyers petitioned the court to hold the second hearing earlier, and he will appear on Thursday, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and independent news site Mediazona reported.

Gershkovich’s employer and US officials have denounced the trial as sham and illegitimate.

“Evan has never been employed by the United States government. Evan is not a spy. Journalism is not a crime. And Evan should never have been detained in the first place,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in June.

Authorities arrested Gershkovich on March 29, 2023, and claimed without offering any evidence that he was gathering secret information for the US.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s office said the journalist was accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a plant about 150km north of Yekaterinburg that produces and repairs tanks and other military equipment.

It has also been viewed as a symbol of pro-Kremlin sentiment ever since one of its managers publicly denounced the 2011-12 anti-government protests in Moscow.

Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Russia has signalled the possibility of a prisoner swap involving Gershkovich, but it says a verdict – which could take months – would have to come first.

Even after a verdict, it still could take months or years.

The American-born son of immigrants from the USSR, Gershkovich is the first Western journalist arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.

The State Department has declared him “wrongfully detained”, thereby committing the government to assertively seek his release.

Gershkovich’s arrest came about a year after President Vladimir Putin pushed through laws that chilled journalists, criminalising criticism of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine and statements seen as discrediting the military.

After he was detained, fears rose that Russia was targeting Americans as animosity between Moscow and Washington grew.

In 2023, Alsu Kurmasheva, a reporter with dual American-Russian citizenship for the US government-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, was arrested for alleged violation of the law requiring “foreign agents” to register.

Another dual national, Los Angeles resident Ksenia Karelina, is on trial, also in Yekaterinburg, on treason charges for allegedly raising money for a Ukrainian organisation that supplied arms and ammunition to Kyiv.