The State Department designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as "wrongfully detained" by Russian authorities on Monday, which will allow the U.S. officials to work collaboratively across agencies to secure his release. 

"Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. "The U.S. government will provide all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family. We call for the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr. Gershkovich."

Gershkovich, who works as a reporter in the Wall Street Journal's Moscow bureau, was detained on March 29 in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city on Russia. 

Russia's Federal Security Service formally charged Gershkovich with espionage last week, accusing him of collecting "information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex," according to state media outlet Tass. 

Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have categorically denied the accusations. 

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Emma Tucker, the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, wrote in a note to the newsroom on Tuesday that attorneys retained by Dow Jones were able to meet with him in jail. 

"Evan's health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world," Tucker wrote in the message. "We continue to call for his immediate release."

The White House condemned Gershkovich's detention on Monday, with National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby saying he is a "journalist, not a criminal."

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also called on Russia to release Gershkovich. 

"Russia has a long and disturbing history of unjustly detaining U.S. citizens in a judicial system that provides neither transparency nor justice," Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a joint statement on Friday. "Indeed, even now, the Kremlin continues to wrongfully detain U.S. citizen Paul Whelan. The Kremlin should release Mr. Whelan and Mr. Gershkovich now."

The State Department on Monday also called on Russia to release Paul Whelan, a former Marine who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges in 2018. 

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The National Press Club praised the State Department for designating Gershkovich as wrongfully detained, but said the determination should have been made soon. 

"While this case has moved at a record pace, it still took almost two weeks for our government to make this determination. We must do more to streamline the process – especially as it relates to journalists," directors of the National Press Club and National Press Club Journalism Institute said in a statement on Monday. "We believe it is always a wrongful detention when a journalist is held for doing their job."

Multiple police vehicles were firebombed with molotov cocktails during a dissident republican parade in the Northern Ireland border city of Derry on Monday, one day before President Biden is set to visit the country, according to police. 

A group of people in paramilitary uniforms marched through the streets to commemorate the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, in which Irish nationalists launched an armed insurrection in protest of British rule. 

Monday also marks the 25-year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of the low-intensity civil war known as "the Troubles."

Nigel Goddard, the police chief in Derry, called the violence on Monday a "senseless and reckless attack on our officers." 

"What we saw develop this afternoon in Creggan was incredibly disheartening. As the parade was un-notified, police were in attendance with a proportionate policing operation. Sadly, before the parade even started, we observed young people in the vicinity making petrol bombs to throw at police," Goddard said in a statement. 

"Shortly after the parade commenced, petrol bombs and other objects were thrown at one of our vehicles at the junction of Iniscarn Road and Linsfort Drive."

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Local newspapers reported on Sunday that the Police Service of Northern Ireland disrupted a bomb plot by members of the New IRA, paramilitary splinter group of the Irish Republican Army. 

MI5 also upped the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland from "substantial" to "severe" last month, ahead of the planned celebrations for the Good Friday Agreement's anniversary. 

President Biden will meet with UK Prime Minster Rishi Sunak in Belfast on Wednesday to commemorate the Good Friday Agreement, then give a speech at Ulster University before departing for Dublin to meet with Irish President Michael Higgins. 

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that the White House is aware of the recent threats of violence in Northern Ireland. 

Biden, who is also set to meet with distant relatives during the trip, has frequently commented on how his Irish heritage shaped his life. 

"I’m the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden," Biden said at the annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon last year. "And like so many Americans of Irish heritage, I love Ireland and I was raised in a circumstance where you would have thought my whole family… they came in 1844 and 1845, but you’d think they’d all lived in Ireland the last 60 years — the previous 60 years."