‘Unimaginable’: WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s family pen letter on anniversary of arrest

The family of detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich have penned a letter on the anniversary of his arrest in Russia.

One year after US journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on espionage charges, his family vowed on Friday to continue fighting for his release, saying his innocence gives him courage in the face of the ordeal.

“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 to the readers of the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich’s employer. “But despite this long battle, we are still standing strong.”

Gershkovich, 32, was detained by FSB security service agents on March 29, 2023, and accused of spying – the first such charge against a Western journalist since the Soviet-era.

Gershkovich, his employers and the White House all vehemently reject the spying accusations, saying he was an honest journalist doing his job.

Ella Milman, Danielle and Mikhail Gershkovich, mother, sister and father to detained journalist, Evan Gershkovich, in Danielle's apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvaniam on February 27. Picture: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed willingness to exchange Gershkovich, and the Kremlin on Thursday said conversations were still ongoing behind the scenes.

In their letter, Gershkovich’s parents, Mikhail and Ella, and sister Danielle described the past year as “unimaginable.” “It has felt like holding our breath,” the family wrote. “We have been living with a constant ache in our hearts thinking about Evan every moment of every day.”

The family thanked the US government, the Journal, Gershkovich’s friends and well-wishers for working towards his release and for their support. The family has met with US President Joe Biden who promised to do “whatever it takes” to bring the reporter home.

“Throughout all the challenges in this tumultuous time we’ve watched as Evan has faced this uncertainty, stuck in a small cell, with limited news of the world, without his freedom.”

Washington has accused Moscow of arresting US citizens on baseless charges to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad.

Evan Gershkovich.

The US government has declared that Gershkovich is wrongfully detained, meaning it effectively regards him as a political hostage.

Over the past year, the family has watched footage and photographs from a Moscow court where Gershkovich appeared every few weeks to have his pre-trial detention extended continually.

“We have watched him face this with his head held high because he is innocent,” the family wrote in their letter. “He inspires us to keep going every day, especially on those days where we receive his letters and see his smile from the courtroom camera.”

Most recently on Tuesday, the court in Moscow ruled that Gershkovich would remain in detention until late June.

At Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, the reporter shares a small cell with another inmate.

He gets an hour-long walk in a small prison yard every day, tries to stay fit through exercise and relies on fruit and vegetables sent by friends to supplement the meager prison diet.

“We will continue fighting for Evan’s freedom, whatever it takes,” the family’s letter said.

HOW EVAN’S LOVE FOR RUSSIA LANDED HIM IN JAIL

The annals of history are jammed with mostly pretty lousy years, but 1991 was one of those rare good ones.

It was the year in which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was finally and formally dissolved, bringing the Cold War to a close.

The mood of optimism was everywhere and inescapable; we were “watching the world wake up from history,” as the British rock group Jesus Jones sang in their hit song Right Here, Right Now.

The future Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was born in 1991, to Russian émigré parents who settled in New Jersey.

Over the course of Mr Gershkovich’s 32 and a half years, that mood of optimism, so strong in the 1990s, has been steadily and then utterly extinguished.

On Friday, he will mark one full year in detention in a Moscow prison, as he faces a possible criminal trial over bogus spying charges.

Evan Gershkovich put on a defiant display when he appeared in court in Moscow this week.. Picture: Handout / Moscow City Court press service / AFP

Meanwhile the Russia he was reporting on slides further into oppression and criminality, with figures opposing leader Vladimir Putin silenced and killed.

It’s a place where US citizens can find themselves suddenly arrested, to be used as bargaining chips in a bigger, broader geopolitical battle.

According to Paul Beckett, a colleague of Mr Gershkovich’s at the Wall Street Journal, the detaining of US citizens has become “a business for Putin, writ large”.

“There is a hostage-taking element to this which gives Putin leverage to manoeuvre the US,” Mr Beckett said.

The detentions of any US citizens are “terrible,” he said, but the arrest of a foreign journalist also has “a massive chilling effect in reporting about Russia”.

“Every American reporter who was [in Moscow] left [after Mr Gershkovich’s arrest], and most of the US news outlets that had bureaus there left,” he said.

“So now you see Russia being covered by many major American news organisations from Warsaw, Berlin, Tbilisi and Dubai; those are all Moscow correspondents in exile. The independent Russian media left as well, they’re also in Berlin. It’s had such a huge chilling effect, and this essentially clears the way for Putin’s propaganda to prevail.”

Others in the profession concur.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said negotiations on Evan’s future must remain a secret. Picture: AFP

In a recent Vanity Fair story, the chief of the New York Times’ Moscow bureau (one of the few left), Anton Troianovski, warned that “this idea that it’s dangerous to talk to Western journalists is very, very, very much ingrained in many, many Russians now”.

In an interview with the US broadcaster Tucker Carlson last month, Putin held out some hope for Mr Gershkovich’s supporters, suggesting he “may return to his motherland” – but stressing the negotiations had to remain secret.

This insistence upon secrecy can put friends and supporters of a detained person in a terrible bind, not knowing whether to agitate for their release, or hope “quiet diplomacy” achieves a desired outcome.

For the Journal, “quiet diplomacy” was not an option after Mr Gershkovich was arrested by the Federal Security Service in Yekaterinburg on March 29, 2023, while he was researching a story on the private military force the Wagner Group.

“They accused our guy publicly of being a spy, so we had to come back very, very loudly,” Mr Beckett said.

“And very early on, someone who knows these things extremely well said to us there are times to be loud, and there are times to be quiet, and this is a time to be loud.”

That volume has not abated in a year. The hashtag “I Stand With Evan” is still being widely shared on social media; Mr Gershkovich’s parents Ella and Mikhail were guests of honour at US President’s Joe Biden’s recent State of the Union address; and the issue achieved an increasingly rare feat in American politics, when the House of Representatives unanimously backed a motion denouncing the arrest.

But with a presidential election looming in the US, some observers fear this could stymie any chance of a quick release for Mr Gershkovich.

“I would be very surprised if we were to see any movement of Evan Gershkovich’s case until the US presidential election has concluded,” Flinders University’s lecturer in international relations Dr Jessica Genauer said.

“There is no love lost between President Putin and President Biden, and there is no motivation for President Putin to show any kind of goodwill before the US election takes place. And if Donald Trump comes in as president, it will be very valuable to Putin to have some kind of card in his hand that he can then leverage.”

Mr Beckett said the Wall Street Journal, and Mr Gershkovich’s family and friends “rely on President Biden’s promise to Evan’s family to bring him home”.

“We know we’re not going to be privy to all the details, but we remain optimistic,” he said.

Dr Jessica Genauer. Picture: Supplied

US ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy. Picture: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP

As for Mr Gershkovich himself, he remains in isolation in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison.

While he gets just one hour of daylight in a tiny yard per day, Mr Beckett said he has access to letters from family and supporters, and his writing shows his sense of humour has not left him.

Reports from lawyers and America’s ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy, who visit regularly, suggest he’s “doing OK given the circumstances”.

“He works very hard at staying OK,” Mr Beckett said.

“I’m sure there’s a lot that we don’t see but through it all he’s managed to maintain his equilibrium, and we’re very grateful for that.”

For Mr Beckett, one of the many tragedies about the situation is that Mr Gershkovich was a true Russophile.

“You have some foreign correspondents who go and hang around the embassies and the international set. Evan went, and because his Russian was so good, he went and listened to Russian punk bands, he played on Russian football teams with Russians, and he loved hanging out at the pub with Russians.

“He just immersed himself, and he had a huge love for Russia and the Russians. He was a perfect foreign correspondent in that way.”

– With AFP

Originally published as ‘Unimaginable’: WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s family pen letter on anniversary of arrest