Evan Gershkovich, WSJ Reporter Arrested in Russia May Be Used in Prison Swap

Edited by: TJVNews.com

According to a report in the New York Post, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, 31, was arrested this week in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on espionage charges, accused by the country’s security service of gathering classified information about a military factory.

Calling for the Biden administration to take “definite action” to bring Gershkovich home safely and to work to secure his immediate release from Russian detention was Trevor Reed, the Marine veteran who was freed from Russian custody in a prisoner swap last year, the Post reported.

Speaking to “CNN This Morning” Friday, Reed suggested that the government would likely have to come to “some type of an agreement” to secure Evan Gershkovich’s release, the Post reported.

“I don’t know if that’s going to involve a prisoner exchange. Obviously there’s a lot of different things that go into those negotiations,” Reed said, according to the Post report. “But I think that it’s our government’s duty to do whatever it takes to get innocent Americans out.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on that President Biden was briefed on Gershkovich’s deterntion, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. She reiterated earlier State Department warnings that Americans are urged to avoid traveling to Russia.

“We’ve been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe,”  Jean-Pierre said. The WSJ also reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. seeks immediate consular access to Gershkovich so that it can provide the appropriate support.

“In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices,” Blinken said.

Releasing its own statement on the matter, the WSJ reported that, “The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”

Almar Latour, the chief executive of Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, condemned Gershkovich’s arrest in a memo to staffers Thursday, which was obtained by CNN, saying the company is working “around the clock” to secure his release. “This is an incredibly disturbing development,” Latour said.

The WSJ reported that Russia’s Federal Security Bureau accused Gershkovich of “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”  Gershkovich is accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country’s foreign ministry.

Gershkovich appeared in Moscow court with a state-appointed defense attorney and was ordered held in custody until May 29, said the press service of the court, according to state news agency TASS and reported on by the WSJ.  He pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against him.

CNN reported that the State Department began tracking Gershkovich’s arrest Wednesday afternoon before the news broke publicly, according to two US officials. The US government was first informed of his arrest by The Wall Street Journal, according to another US official.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday was former Vice President Mike Pence who said that the Biden administration should expel Russian diplomats from the U.S.

“It’s time for the Biden administration to make it clear with Putin that we’re not going to put up with his provocations, we’re not going to put up with bullying reporters,” Pence said. He is considering running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Asked to weigh in on what Gershkovich might be going through in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo jail, Reed related his own experience, saying he spent his first hours in a state of “confusion,”  “shock” and “denial,” likening the ordeal to a nightmare from which he could not wake up, the Post reported.

Reed also did not mince words when discussing Russia’s judicial system, which he slammed as a “joke.”

“Russian officials violate their own rules, regulations, laws there, and there’s no type of accountability for Russian officials who break those laws,” he said. “They can basically do anything that they want,” Reed said.

The Post reported that shortly after he returned to the US, Reed spoke critically of the government for failing to bring home another former Marine, Paul Whelan, who has been languishing in a Russian prison for more than three years on an espionage conviction.

“The United States got me out but they left him there. I can’t describe to you how painful that feeling is,” Reed told “Good Morning America” last May, according to the report.

Gershkovich’s arrest marks the first time an American journalist had been detained since the Cold War.

The Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center’s Tatiana Stanovaya said that Gershkovich’s coverage of the war in Ukraine is likely what attracted authorities’ attention. Reporters Without Borders’ Jeanne Cavalier said the arrest appeared to be “a retaliation measure” that was “very alarming because it is probably a way to intimidate all Western journalists that are trying to investigate aspects of the war on the ground in Russia. “ according to a Wikipedia report.

Former Russian ambassador John J. Sullivan said the arrest was likely a preliminary move in a desired prisoner exchange and that the fact Gershkovich had been charged with espionage rather than a lesser crime indicated the desired swap would likely be for a high-profile prisoner, Wikipedia reported. Former CIA Moscow station chief Daniel Hoffman agreed the timing of the arrest was “probably not a coincidence” and was likely ordered to gain leverage in a prisoner exchange.

Wikipedia reported Hoffman noted the week before the arrest, the U.S. Department of Justice had indicted Sergey Cherkasov for espionage, asserting Cherkasov was a Russian spy enrolled at Johns Hopkins under the guise of being a student from Brazil.

Gershkovich was born in New York City to Russian Jewish parents who emigrated from the former Soviet Union in 1979, as was reported by Wikipedia.org.  He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and graduated from Princeton High School, where he captained the soccer team, in 2010. Wikipedia also reported that at Bowdoin College, he majored in philosophy and English and wrote for The Bowdoin Orient and The Bowdoin Review. He graduated in 2014.