Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, has spent nearly a year in a Moscow prison, awaiting trial for a crime he did not commit. Mr Gershkovich was arrested last March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and jailed on espionage charges. He is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately. Hostage diplomacy lies behind his incarceration. As the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, said, Mr Gershkovich’s case “is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”.
Vladimir Putin indicated in February that a prisoner exchange could lead to the release of Mr Gershkovich. There have been high-profile prisoner swaps in the past. In December 2022, Moscow traded a US basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for a Russian arms trafficker. But a journalist’s detention to secure the release of a Russian hitman would underscore Russia’s retreat into a Soviet past. In 1986 an American journalist, Nicholas Daniloff, was arrested and charged with espionage. He was let go after two weeks when the US released a Soviet diplomat accused of spying. Mr Gershkovich has been inside for nearly 12 months.
Russia has turned away in the last decade from liberal democratic institutions such as a multiparty system, fair elections and a free press. These had taken root after the collapse of the Soviet Union but were unlikely to spring fully grown, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, given a history of tsarist and communist authoritarianism. After last Friday’s horrific concert hall terror attacks outside Moscow, western nations rightly stood with the Russian people. Releasing Mr Gershkovich would earn Mr Putin’s regime global goodwill when its fragility is in the spotlight.
In Moscow’s Lefortovo jail, Mr Gershkovich has kept up his spirits by reading books and letters of support. Journalism is not a crime. Mr Gershkovich was fully accredited to report on Russia, and was doing his job when he was detained. He should never have been imprisoned. But the definition of espionage in Russia is so absurdly broad that the authorities can interpret reporting as spying. The country keeps a disproportionate number of foreign reporters behind bars. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 12 of the global total of 17 non-local imprisoned journalists are held by Russia. Many foreign correspondents have left the country or been denied visas, and their dwindling numbers constrain those who remain even further.
For many Russian reporters, the profession turned deadly long ago. According to the CPJ, 43 journalists and media workers have been killed in Russia since Mr Putin came to power in 1999. Reporting that could be contrary to the state’s narrative is now effectively illegal. The climate of fear has driven many Russian journalists out of the country they love.
Many in Russia know that the defence of the free word offers inspiration to posterity. The list of those, famous and anonymous, who struggled for a free press in the country is a long one. Censorship will disfigure the nation’s intellectual and cultural life. Mr Gershkovich understood this very well. “Reporting on Russia is now also a regular practice of watching people you know get locked away for years,” he tweeted in 2022. Eight months later, he was in prison. His detention has been extended until 30 June, prolonging his nightmare. Moscow should set him free now.
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