ahead. i ll speak with the family of paul weiland, another american, the kremlin has locked up on espionage charges and a group of military families gets the tragic news. nine service members killed when two black hawk choppers crashed. cnn has a crew right near that save. plus tension in the house from paper tossing to hallway shouting in your face. debates are getting heated on the hill. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper, and we start today with our world lead. top u . s. officials are strongly criticizing russia after an american reporter was detained on charges of spying. evan gersh covic appeared in a moscow court today accused of trying to steal russian state secrets. his employer, the wall street journal, says it quote vehemently denies those claims. but now gorshkov itch faces up to 20 years in prison. and today , lawmakers on capitol hill are accusing russia of using this journalist as leverage, and the white house is dismissing the charges.
life of this young american reporter. well, pamela tonight u s secretary of state antony blinken is being very critical indeed of russia s detention of this american journalists, basically calling for consular access to him, but we ve spoken to us diplomats in this country and they re saying that so far, there s been no consular access granted to this us journalist so far. pamela alright, matthew chance in moscow for a stay safe over there, matthew. thank you. 11 is not the only american detained in russia right now. former u. s. marine paul whelan was accused of being a spy and was sentenced to 16 years in a russian prison in 2020. paul s brother, david whelan joins us now. so, david, thank you for coming on your show. first off. what is your reaction when you heard another american was detained in russia for spine? well my heart sank. and as i ve