For the Past Year, WSJ Journalist Evan Gershkovich Has Been Unjustly Detained in Russia
The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested by Russian security forces on March 29, 2023.
A year ago today, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested by Russian security forces and accused of being a spy while he was on assignment reporting for the Journal’s Moscow bureau. Earlier this week, a Russian court extended his pre-trial detention, placing him behind bars until at least June 30th.
To mark his year of unjust incarceration, I’ve put together a quick reading list to introduce you to Gershovich’s situation and the ongoing effort to bring him home safely.
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“Evan Gershkovich: Updates on the WSJ Reporter Detained in Russia” (Wall Street Journal)
This page features the many WSJ updates on Gershovich’s case, including interviews with family members.
“American WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich held for 250 days” (CNN, 12/4/23)
“Bring Evan Gershkovich home: Paul Beckett's most important assignment” (Long Lead Presents: Depth Perception, Mark Yarm, 12/12/23)
Last Monday—day 250—Gershkovich’s sister, Danielle, and Journal editor Paul Beckett did a combined 10 news hits on CNN, BBC, NewsNation, and Fox affiliates. The goal, Beckett tells me over the phone later that day, was to “make sure that Evan is not forgotten.” He adds, “Because if he’s forgotten, I don’t think anything will happen.”
Beckett, who hails from Scotland, is a 25-year veteran of the Journal and was the paper’s Washington bureau chief until October. He has moved into a new role, one dedicated exclusively to securing Gershkovich’s release. A large part of the gig is doing reporting, but not for the pages of the Journal.
“The Fight to Free Evan Gershkovich” (Time, Charlotte Alter, 3/7/24)
For his immigrant family, Gershkovich’s detention shattered a belief that their son could chase his American dream in the country of his heritage. Perhaps the cruelest irony is that Gershkovich loved Russian culture; his goal as a reporter, family and friends say, was to depict in its full complexity a country that is often reduced to caricature. Instead Gershkovich is trapped in limbo. So are his parents. Forty years after they fled Soviet Russia, their only son has become a political pawn in a new Cold War, a human bargaining chip for Vladimir Putin as relations between the two countries cratered with the invasion of Ukraine.
“A year ago Russia jailed Evan Gershkovich for doing journalism. He’s still there.” (The Guardian, Margaret Sullivan, 3/18/24)
The photograph, framed and in a place of honor, is precious to me. Taken in 2016 outside a Manhattan restaurant, it’s a casual shot of four young people and me, everyone smiling. I was concluding my stint as New York Times public editor, and each of these talented young journalists – plus one more who couldn’t make it to the dinner – had served as my editorial assistant at some point over a four-year period.
Almost eight years later, I’ve kept tabs on them. Two still work at the Times, having climbed the newsroom ladder to become a courts reporter and a book-review editor, respectively. One recently has experienced the joy of his first child’s birth. Another has bought a house, with her husband, after moving to Seattle.
And, tragically, one – Evan Gershkovich, now 32 – is imprisoned in Russia, absurdly charged by the Putin regime with espionage when he was merely doing his job of reporting for the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.
“Jailed in Putin’s Russia for Speaking the Truth” (The New York Times, The New York Times Editorial Board, 3/22/24)
As the first anniversary of Mr. Gershkovich’s incarceration approaches, there is no evidence of a potential trade, though Mr. Putin did suggest last month that it could happen. And there is no indication that a trial is imminent. Instead, Mr. Gershkovich will soon have spent a year at Lefortovo, which was built in the 19th century and was notorious in the Soviet era as an interrogation center for political prisoners, who are typically held in solitary confinement. Human contact is strictly limited: Only lawyers are usually allowed to visit.
“The long struggle to free Evan Gershkovich from a Moscow prison” (CBS News, Lesley Stahl, 3/24/24)
On March 29, 2023, Evan Gershkovich was on assignment in Russia when he was arrested by security forces and accused of being a spy, a charge vigorously denied by Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government.
Look around the Wall Street Journal offices in Manhattan, and you'll see Gershkovich, the hostage, everywhere – on buttons, cards, shirts, and screens that stop you in your tracks.
“Parents of reporter Evan Gershkovich speak out 1 year into his Russian detainment: Exclusive” (ABC News, Meredith Deliso, Caroline Guthrie, 3/25/24)
"We know that the U.S. government is taking Evan's case very seriously," his mother, Ella Milman, told "Good Morning America" co-anchor George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive sit-down interview.
"I think if you let the pessimism in ... the game is over," she said. "And our saying in the family is we're moving forward. Moving forward."
"And he says that he's fighting. He's fighting," she added.
“Evan Gershkovich’s Stolen Year in a Russian Jail” (The Wall Street Journal, Eliot Brown, 3/29/24)
Evan Gershkovich was supposed to be with his friends in Berlin the first week of April 2023.
The Wall Street Journal Russia correspondent was set to stay in an Airbnb in the edgy Neukölln neighborhood, a base to explore the city’s cobble-lined streets with his tightknit crew of journalist pals exiled there from Moscow. He was going to drink coffee in hipster cafes and chat into the night over glasses of beer.
It was the start of his stolen year.
This week at The Present Age:
That’s it for today. I’ll be back next week.
Parker
Thank you for posting this, Parker. Bring Evan home! <3