A year after the arrest of Evan Gershkovich in Russia, the Wall Street Journal reporter’s family pledged to continue to fight for release from a Moscow prison where he is being held on espionage charges the White House and his employer say are fabricated.
Gershkovich became the first U.S. journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War when he was detained on March 29, 2023, by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which said he had been trying to obtain military secrets.
The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government have vehemently rejected the espionage charges, saying he was merely doing his job as an accredited reporter when he was arrested.
Gershkovich stands inside a defendants' cage before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his pretrial detention on espionage charges in Moscow on October 10, 2023.
Gershkovich saw his detention extended to June 30 earlier this week by the Moscow City Court. The Kremlin said on March 29 it had no information on when the 32-year-old’s trial will begin. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in jail.
"We never anticipated this situation happening to our son and brother, let alone a full year with no certainty or clear path forward," his family said in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal on March 29 to mark the anniversary.
"But despite this long battle, we are still standing strong."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on March 29 that "to date, Russia has provided no evidence of wrongdoing for a simple reason: Evan did nothing wrong. Journalism is not a crime."
Born in the United States to Soviet emigres, Gershkovich reported from Russia for six years before being detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
Leon Panetta, former director of the CIA, said the United States must play a "tough game" with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to get Gershkovich released.
"We have got to play a tough game with Putin to make sure he’s not going to get away with this kind of game." Panetta said on Fox News.
Gershkovich will ultimately be released through a prisoner swap, Panetta predicted, saying the United States could "develop some leverage" for such a deal by arresting Russian spies in the United States "so that [Putin] has a reason to come to the bargaining table."
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, also speaking on Fox News, said the United States engages daily with the "highest levels of the Russian government" in its effort to win Gershkovich's release, but he said it was "important not to talk about the deliberations in public."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also stressed the importance of silence about any negotiations, but Wall Street Journal Associate Editor Paul Beckett, who is leading the newspaper’s efforts to free Gershkovich, said talks involving Gershkovich on any level keep his supporters “optimistic that something can be done.”
Russian authorities accuse Gershkovich of collecting state secrets about the military industrial complex at the behest of the U.S. government.
SEE ALSO: How The Russian State Ramped Up The Suppression Of Dissent In 2023: 'It Worked In The Soviet Union, And It Works Now'Wall Street Journal Associate Editor Paul Beckett, who is leading the newspaper’s efforts to free Gershkovich, told Current Time in an interview broadcast on March 29 that the reporter is “holding up OK under very difficult circumstances.”
“He's in his cell for 23 hours a day. He has an hour outside in the courtyard, which is about the same size as his cell. So we've just been very grateful that he's been able to maintain his equilibrium,” Beckett said of Gershkovich’s incarceration in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison.
Beckett said that besides one hour of courtyard time per day, Gershkovich has been in constant correspondence with his family, including swapping lines from shows that they enjoyed together, and weekly meetings with his lawyers.
Earlier on March 28 in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about reports of a possible prisoner exchange involving Gershkovich, and he stressed the importance of silence about any negotiations.
But Beckett said talks involving Gershkovich on any level keep his supporters "optimistic that something can be done."
Gershkovich is one of two American reporters currently being held by Russian authorities. The other is Alsu Kurmasheva, an RFE/RL journalist who holds dual Russian-American citizenship.
RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva stands in a glass cage in a courtroom in Kazan, Russia, on February 1.
Kurmasheva, 47, was arrested in Kazan last October and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent under a punitive Russian law that targets journalists, civil society activists, and others. She’s also been charged with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
RFE/RL and the U.S. government say the charges are reprisals for her work as a journalist for RFE/RL in Prague. She had traveled to Russia to visit and care for her elderly mother and was initially detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where her U.S. and Russian passports were confiscated.
Gershkovich has been designated as wrongfully detained by the U.S. government. Kurmasheva, however, has not despite pleas from RFE/RL and Kurmasheva’s family.
The Wall Street Journal on March 28 published a story about her detention and the difficulties her husband, Pavel Butorin, who also works for RFE/RL in Prague, and their two daughters, aged 12 and 15, have had without her and their efforts to have her designated as wrongfully detained.
SEE ALSO: Top Czech Diplomat Uses UN Debate To Demand Moscow Free RFE/RL Journalist KurmashevaThe designation would mean her case would be assigned to the office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs in the State Department, raising the political profile of her situation and allowing the Biden administration to allocate more resources to securing her release. The designation currently applies only to Gershkovich and another American held in Russia, Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and corporate security executive who is serving a 16-year prison sentence on espionage charges.
Other events being held to mark the one-year anniversary of Gershkovich’s detention include a 24-hour read-a-thon of his work by his Wall Street Journal colleagues at the newspaper’s headquarters in New York and swimming events at Brighton Beaches in New Zealand, South African, Canada, the United States and Britain.
The beaches were chosen in recognition of his family’s connection to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York, which is home to a large Russian immigrant community. Gershkovich's parents emigrated from the Soviet Union, separately, in 1979.