A Russian court has found US reporter Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and jailed him for 16 years, state news agency RIA has said, in a case that his employer, the Wall Street Journal, has called a sham.

Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American who denied any wrongdoing and said the allegations against him were false, went on trial last month in the city of Yekaterinburg.

Prosecutors alleged that Gershkovich had gathered secret information on the orders of the US Central Intelligence Agency about a company that manufactures tanks for Russia's war in Ukraine.

He is the first US journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War.

Espionage cases often take months to handle and the unusual speed at which his trial was held behind closed doors — Friday's hearing was only the third in the trial — has stoked speculation that a long-discussed US-Russia prisoner exchange deal involving him and other Americans detained in Russia may be in the offing.

The Kremlin, when asked by Reuters on Friday about the possibility of such an exchange, declined to comment.

Who is Gershkovich?

Raised in New Jersey, Gershkovich is a fluent Russian speaker and avid cook.

He arrived in Russia in 2017 to work for a small English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, and quickly produced some of the outlet's biggest stories on a shoestring budget.

He then worked for AFP, reporting on forest fires in Siberia, a crackdown on the opposition and Moscow downplaying the effects of the Covid pandemic.

Weeks before the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, he landed his new job: Moscow correspondent with The Wall Street Journal.

In that role, he reported extensively on how ordinary Russians experienced the Ukraine conflict, speaking to the families of dead soldiers.