A Moscow court on Tuesday upheld the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested while on a reporting trip last month and held on an allegation of espionage that the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

After a closed hearing, Mr. Gershkovich, a 31-year-old American citizen, was denied bail and ordered held in the Russian capital’s Lefortovo prison pending trial. Lefortovo has often been used to house prominent political prisoners.

[Everyone knows this is nothing more than hostaging by Vladimir Putin. He wants to get some of his intelligence agents/assassins out of Western prisons and has seized Gershkovich as trade bait. The Russian courts of today are just as corrupt and obedient to the modern tsar as they were to the Soviet tsars that preceded Putin. I noted one case in particular last month that is likely what Putin has in mind, which would involve a three-country deal including Slovenia. — Ed]