What can the White House do to free Evan Gershkovich?

This is The Guardian.

At the end of March, the authorities in Russia arrested Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. For the first time in nearly 40 years, Russian authorities have arrested an American journalist and charged him with espionage. More than a month after his arrest, he remains in a prison cell in Moscow, waiting to learn his fate. In response, the Wall Street Journal said it vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter. In a speech last Saturday at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, President Joe Biden addressed the parents of Evan Gershkovich, who were there in the room.

It costs 20 rubles per page to write to my best friend, 65 for the envelope, 75 more. So he has the option to reply. Last month, we were chatting on a beach. Now it's letters to Lefortovo prison and a quiet prayer that he will receive them soon.

Polina Ivanova is a foreign correspondent for The Financial Times, covering Russia and Ukraine. Last week, she wrote a quite beautiful piece for the FT, called Letters to Evan Gershkovich, my friend in a Moscow jail.

Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia on March 29th and placed in a Moscow jail. I could write that sentence 100 times, and it would not seem any less absurd. Evan has been taken hostage by the Russian state espionage. That is the excuse it gives for sending a group of plain-clothed thugs to grab our funny friend and push him hooded into a car.

Polina, you wrote those words in your newspaper in the Financial Times. You describe Evan Gershkovich as your best friend. Tell us when you first met him and how you met him.

We first met, I think, around the beginning of 2018.

Just say something about identities, because you mentioned that you both grew up with Russian as the language at home. That means, and I'm not sure everyone knows this about Evan, but his family is Russian.

His family comes from the Soviet Union.

Just give us a sense, as your piece in the FTE does, of what he's like, you mentioned in that piece, his talent and love for cooking. We know that he's a fan like me of Arsenal Football Club. There were some fans that Arsenal held up banners demanding his release. But just give us a flavor of the person, as well as the figure who's now in the news.

Sure, I mean, yes, you're absolutely right about Arsenal. And football's a big part of Evan's life. Evan's a super funny, very charming and open person who is able to talk to almost anyone who finds a common language with anybody that he meets. Part of our letter-writing campaign, which I'm sure we'll talk about, there are people translating letters in Riga, in the U..S, in Tokyo. He's really someone who makes friends everywhere he goes and really leaves a lasting impression.

I was struck by the observation that I drew from it was that he's somebody who really takes what he does very, very seriously. His choice of holiday reading, of beach reading when you were on a recent vacation together, I mean, it's not what everyone would choose to read when they're on holiday. But I think it says something about how committed he is to telling the Russia story. You tell us about that.

Yes, absolutely, that's exactly the case. Evan had taken with him this massive copy of Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, a Ukrainian-born writer who was writing about the Second World War. Evan was talking about how he'd chosen the book because he felt that it would help him understand the conflict better if he was reading this novel, which has a lot of granular detail about the Second World War. On the eastern front, I had a lot of respect for this because I was trying to switch off. From the fact that we had to cover this conflict all the time and all the kind of horror that we have to absorb in our day jobs.

Let's get to the circumstances that led to his arrest and now imprisonment. You report now on Russia from Berlin, and you like a lot of foreign reporters, and in fact, some Russian journalists, too. Left after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Evan Gershkovich also initially left, but then, a few months later, sort of against the current, returned to Russia. What can you tell us about why he returned? Because it does seem brave, but also puzzling.

So a lot of journalists left after the start of the invasion, that's true. Specifically, a lot of Russian national correspondents left Russian passport holders.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Moscow has continued its clampdown on independent media within its borders. Many Russian journalists fled rather than risk imprisonment for not towing the government's line.

The laws changed, which basically placed Russian national correspondents in a lot of danger and at risk of breaking the law just by reporting, honestly, on the war. Evan returned in the summer of 2022 on his first reporting assignment to Russia, and foreign correspondents were increasingly also towards the autumn starting to return. I also returned on several reporting trips because there was an understanding that there was a difference between reporting. That was being done in the Russian language by Russian reporters and foreign correspondents who were being regularly re-accredited by the Russian Foreign Ministry over the course of the past year. Granted press visas and who were working openly and with the full consent and approval of the Russian state. So there was a belief that for the time that we are able to still work, we should, and we have a duty to keep working.

Yeah, the indispensability of it very, very clear, but as you say, it carries with it huge risks, and he was very alive to those risks even last summer, tweeted. Reporting on Russia is now also a regular practice of watching people, you know, get locked away for years. I mean, obviously that reads very differently now that he is himself in a prison cell.

We first realized that he had disappeared actually before we heard that he was arrested. As in, our conversations are very regular, we talk all the time, especially with our other friends, including a colleague of yours at the Guardian. Piotr, Sauer and Piotr, in fact, called me and said, You know, where's Evan? We're not hearing from Evan.

The official reason that the Russian authorities, the FSB arrested him are giving for this arrest, the charges that face him are espionage. And the Federal Security Service, or FSB, accused him of quote. Acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex. That constitutes the state's secret. The Wall Street Journal immediately denied those accusations and have demanded his release. I mean, you're in touch with him as you've been telling us through those letters that you're sending him. How has he been able to respond to these charges, to defend himself?

I mean, he's denied the charges, as we know from a state media report. But I have to say that because it is an espionage case, and because the legal system is, as you say, a very different one. To put it lightly, to what we understand as a judicial system, especially in cases like this, it's a closed court, so we really don't know what he's being accused of beyond the espionage charge. We've seen that he is standing tall and dignified. And really representing everybody and representing the idea of a free press in Russia and the right to that.

And standing tall in this bizarre glass box.

Yeah, aquarium, we call it, yeah.

I mean, that itself. It's very shocking to see it. Because he's confined, as if he's some huge physical threat that they can't even allow him to breathe the same air as everyone in that room. What's your thinking? You know the country well of why they're doing that, There's some sort of signal they're sending with that image, don't you think?

If it's a signal, I mean, it's a way to represent him as this quote-unquote spy to, I guess, the Russian domestic public, perhaps. But it's also common practice. I mean, we do see people in these circumstances. You're probably very familiar with images, also of Brittany Greiner, the female basketball player, surrounded by FSB officers with their faces in balaclavas. It obviously is quite a threatening image and intended to show that. You know, this guy, who is a young journalist who was doing a wonderful job of covering the country with nuance and wisdom. And sensitivity, is in some sort of threat. That needs to be surrounded by men in Balaclavas, which is obviously very sad to see.

Yeah, and obviously an image designed to intimidate perhaps him, but also other people, you know, who see it.

Absolutely.

There is the view outside that this is, and I think you nodded to it before that, this is really, you know, forget the charges, they're obviously trumped up and bogus. That he's essentially a hostage and being used as a pawn, as a sort of trading bargaining chip for a future prisoner swap with the Americans. And that the trigger for that, or the prompt for that, might have been you referred to her. BRITTANY GREINer The basketball player WNBA star Brittany Greiner on her way home to the U.S tonight. Freed from Russia in a prisoner swap for a Russian arms dealer convicted here in the U.S, known as the Merchant of Death. Greiner was arrested in February, days before Russia invaded Ukraine. And tonight, nearly 10 months later, she is now free, whose release was brought about by Yes, another swap, and that, therefore, the Russians thought, well, this can work.

We see this hostage diplomacy trend, right? We see that, you know, Russia isn't the only country doing it, but we have seen. Trevor Reed, a former U.S marine who was taken by Russia and then exchanged in a prison exchange. Then Brittany Greiner and now Evan Gershkovich, has been taken. You know, there does seem to be a pattern here. It's hard to not notice it. And, if I'm not mistaken, more Americans have been detained by foreign governments in recent years than by, say, criminal gangs or terrorism groups.

So let's say that is the plan. What is the immediate timeline? I think the FSB, the security agency, said initially that they were planning on keeping him only until the end of the month. Do we think that's possible, that that's how it's going to work out? Do you expect his release fairly soon, or are you worried that it's not on that timeline?

Honestly, it's very hard to say. Obviously, we hope that it's sooner rather than later, but experience shows that it does take a long time. And very much not expecting any positive news this month, I fear. Usually, the timeline works as follows. So a case is opened and the first session of the trial in Evan's case will be held at the end of this month. So I think it's on. The first hearing is around the 28th or the 29th of May.

So that's paradoxical in a way. The sooner he is convicted of these charges, which you and the Wall Street Journal everyone insists are bogus and trumped up, the better. I mean, you mentioned the case of Paul Whelan. That is in some ways grounds for pessimism, I suppose. Because he, we should explain, is a Michigan corporate security executive who has been in jail since December 2018 and wasn't released. When Brittany Greiner was. And that apparently seems to be because the Russians view espionage charges differently from the kind of charges that Brittany Greiner faced, which I think were on a drugs charge.

It does, and it is worrying. Of course, it's a much harder case, it's a much tougher case when it's espionage charges. And it's also very difficult for his family, for his parents, and also for friends and colleagues. The fact that it is a closed trial and we will know so little about what is happening in that process throughout, everything will be closed off, including his own.

So while this is going on, you family, friends are doing interviews like this one, keeping awareness of his case high, making sure that his story remains in the news. And we're glad to be part of that effort. But just in terms of the politics of this, this fits in with the relationship between Washington and Moscow. This is part of that. And what can you tell us about efforts that you know of that?

A lot of that happens behind closed doors and for I think good reason, a lot of those negotiations, I think even afterwards. You will find. If you look back at reports on, you know, the negotiations around Brittany Greiner and other negotiations that have been successful. A lot of that still doesn't come out into the public, so there are channels of communication. We know historically because they have worked to be able to free people. But we will not really be told very much about what is happening. We can see that the U..S.

It is a guessing game because the signals are sort of contradictory. Because, on the one hand, there was quite a lot of commentary after the prisoner swap that led to Brittany Greiner being released, that, you know, people thought, OK. Despite what's going on with Ukraine and this diplomatic conflict between the United States and Russia over that, that. Maybe there is some kind of easing of tension if they're able to work out a prisoner swap like that. On the other hand, you know, the Russian foreign minister rejected a request from the U.S for a consular visit for Evan Gushkovich. They said that, you know? It was in retaliation from the United States refusing to grant visas to Russian journalists who had planned to accompany the foreign minister. Russian foreign minister on a trip to the U..N. As if, you know, we're back into tit-for-tat exchanges between the sides. So, I mean, often these things, there's the outer appearance of, you know, hostility or movement, and then there's what's going on behind the scenes.

I feel that the state of the relationship in reality is very bad. Evan is the first foreign reporter to be detained in Russia since the Cold War, and I think that is significant. We also saw a Bloomberg report that said, you know, citing its sources, that Evan's detention was agreed upon from the very top of the Kremlin, i...e. Vladimir Putin. So in some ways, it seems like an escalation in a poor relationship.

I mean, we've focused on Evan Gushkovich, your friend, colleague, as an American, in what we've been talking about now. But obviously, he's also a journalist, and this arrest fits in a wider pattern of Vladimir Putin and his war on journalists and on the press. I mean, Evan himself was aware of it, we talked about it, him noticing how colleagues of his were getting locked away. As you and I speak, it is the Week of World Press Freedom Day. To what extent do you think? Especially if it did go all the way to the top? And it was Putin himself who approved this arrest. To what extent was this? Maybe not about his relationship with the United States, but rather sending yet another signal to journalists? That, you know, you're not going to be able to tell the truth about the war in Ukraine, and I'm going to deter you from doing so.

That has obviously been a trend as well, and a very significant one since the start of the war, as I mentioned, hundreds of Russian reporters were forced to flee the country, and most independent outlets were closed down. A lot of our friends, Evan's friends, have been labeled foreign agents and now have relocated abroad. And are doing a fantastic job of maintaining investigative journalism on Russia in Russian from abroad, very important work. The people who were able to continue working were largely foreign correspondents, and obviously this has a chilling effect.

When we began, we heard from you talking about the way you stay in touch with Evan via these letters that you send. And you spelled it out when you wrote about this. These weirdly digitized ways that you're able to send things, get things to him, just tell us something about that, just because I think it's very unexpected. And then perhaps you can tell us about your effort to get people other than you to write letters to him. And perhaps for people listening to this, how they can help.

Packages are delivered either in person to Lefortovo through a specific room. But there's also a digital system which you can log on to, which is run by the Russian prison Service. It is strangely digitized. You can go in there and search for what books they have available and post them to Evan. If you are a Russian national, with Russian bank cards and phone numbers and that kind of thing. There are these restrictions, of course, and we can subscribe him to magazines, we've subscribed him to Russian Press.

I'm sure, and just say in a word, how we'll put this in the show notes, too for this episode. But just tell people listening to this how they can send a letter if they're keen to.

You just send them to our Gmail inbox, it's freegershkovich at gmail.com, so free, and then Evan's surname at Gmail.com is one word. We then translate those we have, our kind of friends, Evan's friends, translating those into Russian as required by law. And then we print and post them in Moscow. And we know that they are reaching him, Evan is replying whenever he's able to.

Paulina Ivanova, thank you so much for talking to me about all of this on Politics Weekly America.

Thank you, thank you for your time.

And that is all from me for this week. Before we go, another reminder to subscribe to the Guardian's podcast series Cotton Capital, which is looking at the Guardian's links to transatlantic slavery. Episode 5 sees Cotton Capital's special correspondent Lanre Bacare examining Black Mancunian history. Beginning with the 1945 Pan-African Congress, which took place in the city and shaped independence movements across Africa, just search for Cotton Capital wherever you get your podcasts and hit Subscribe. But for now, it's goodbye.

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