During nearly 15 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, Evan Gershkovich pored over Russian literary classics like “War and Peace” and played slow chess via correspondence with his father in the United States. He tries to stay in shape during the hours-long exercise he is allowed each day.
Friends who correspond with him describe Mr. Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, as positive, strong-willed and rarely discouraged, despite facing the official wrath of President Trump’s Russia. President Vladimir V. Putin. He is scheduled to go on trial Wednesday, facing up to 20 years in prison for espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. State Department vehemently deny.
“He may have ups and downs like everyone else, but he is still confident in himself, in his righteousness,” said Maria Borzunova, a Russian journalist. She was among a small group of Mr. Gershkovich’s friends who organized the monumental task of taking thousands of letters from well-wishers and translating them into Russian, for approval by prison censors. they.
At the heart of Mr. Gershkovich’s ordeal is emptiness – there is no evidence published by Russian authorities to support their claim that he was a spy. Nor is it likely to emerge from his trial in Yekaterinburg, which has been declared secret, with any observers barred from attending and his lawyers barred from publicly revealing anything. whatever they know.
Just before the trial was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. local time, journalists were allowed to film Mr. Gershkovich, with his newly shaved head, as he stood in a glass cage in the courtroom, the outlet said. news coverage.
“We think this is a sham trial based on spurious charges, so the proceedings will be ridiculous,” Almar Latour, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said in an interview. question. He added that it was impossible to predict how the trial would affect efforts to free Mr. Gershkovich.
In Russian trials, conviction is largely a foregone conclusion, especially when – as in this case – the Kremlin is involved. The judge hearing the case boasted to a local news outlet that in his decades-long career, he had only acquitted four defendants. .
For more than five years, friends said, Mr. Gershkovich, an American citizen who grew up in New Jersey, traveled across Russia as a reporter, growing to love the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs continuously reissued his reporting information.
He could now be the subject of a Kremlin prisoner swap, like other recently imprisoned Americans. In conducting such an exchange, Russia insists that a trial must first be completed, ostensibly putting both sides on equal legal footing.
“He is a chip of the Kremlin and they want to trade him,” said Pjotr Sauer, a reporter for The Guardian and a close friend of Mr. Gershkovich.
In April 2022, Russia transaction Trevor Reed, an American convicted of assaulting Russian police officers, for a Russian pilot detained for cocaine trafficking in the United States. In the most prominent recent case, in December 2022, the United States traded a notorious arms dealer, Victor Bout, for Brittney Griner, An American basketball star was jailed for marijuana possession.
When asked in a television interview in February about Mr. Gershkovich’s fate, Mr. Putin said negotiations were underway but he mentioned seeking further concessions. He suggested that he might be willing to trade the reporter for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian sentenced to life in prison in Germany for brazen murder in 2019 of a former Chechen separatist fighter in a park in central Berlin.
Mr. Putin told foreign wire agencies this month that dialogue between intelligence agencies was the best way to resolve such problems. A senior Russian diplomat said the negotiations were being conducted through a dedicated, secret channel.
Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained in Yekaterinburg, just east of the Ural Mountains, in March 2023. Prosecutors, in vague statements about the case, said “at the direction of the CIA” and “using meticulous methods of conspiracy,” he “was gathering secret information” about a factory that manufactured tanks and other weapons.
Mr. Gershkovich was a member of a group of young Western and Russian journalists based in Moscow. They take their role of explaining Russian to outsiders seriously: constantly working to improve their command of the language, traveling extensively, and sharing a traditional weekend cottage in Peredelkino, a village on the outskirts of Moscow is known as a retreat for writers.
Friends said Mr. Gershkovich, raised by Soviet immigrant parents, went by the name Vanya and enjoyed Russian rituals such as saunas and mushroom hunting, along with sports including soccer and skiing. snow. Ashley Huston, a spokeswoman for the Journal, said his family was not available to comment on the trial.
But the environment for journalists in Russia became threatening after the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin passed draconian laws restricting how the war was portrayed and shuttered many agencies Russian independent press. Mr. Gershkovich is among many journalists who have left the country, but he periodically returns to assess how the conflict is changing Russia.
Since no Western reporter has been charged with espionage since the Soviet Union, the prospect of imprisonment seems daunting but remote. Ms. Borzunova said that Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest had crossed the line and made it clear that all reporters, not just Russians, were in danger.
“We thought official recognition meant something, but it doesn’t,” she said.
Lefortovo has long been the main facility detaining dissidents and other high-profile detainees in the capital. Prisoners are kept in their cells 23 hours a day, with one hour allotted for “exercise” in a similarly cramped space open to the sky.
Mr Gershkovich met with his lawyers and the US ambassador, Lynne Tracey, was allowed to visit occasionally. The State Department does declare he was “unlawfully detained.”
His friends took action with a letter-writing campaign to help him connect with the outside world. The campaign attracted more than 5,000 letters from around the world written by everyone from grandmothers to elementary school students. Many people detailed the difficult experiences they had endured, said Polina Ivanova, a reporter for The Financial Times.
Peter Molthoff, from the Netherlands, describes spending two years in a Nazi prison camp during World War II. Now 99 years old, he wrote that he knew what Mr. Gershkovich was going through, encouraged him to be strong and noted that he himself had built a beautiful life after his release.
Mr. Gershkovich’s friends were partly inspired by his always high spirits. During first instance trials, standing in the cage holding the defendants, he often grinned and greeted his colleagues and sometimes clasped his hands into a heart shape.
He retained his sense of humour, suggesting in letters to friends that prison porridge was no worse than some of his childhood meals. Mr. Gershkovich, who worked as a secretary in the newsroom of The New York Times, worked briefly as a chef before entering journalism. His friends prepare weekly care packages to supplement the shortage of fruit and vegetables in Russian prisons, adding candy for his birthday.
He returned the favor by making sure to send them birthday or holiday greetings. He asked his friends to update him on their lives, even encouraging them to send him private letters describing the same social events. “Like a true journalist, he wanted to have different sources,” Mr. Sauer said.
An avid reader, Mr. Gershkovich scoured the prison library to find some of the thick and foundational volumes of Russian literature, including Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and “Life and Fate.” by Vasily Grossman. He also reads poetry and writes about people behind bars. Initially, Ms. Ivanova said, his friends tried to read similar books, running a book club through correspondence, but they couldn’t keep up with him.
His time in prison honed his command of language. “When he first arrived he had Russian, no slang, now he’s lyrical, very good,” Mr. Sauer said.
From the moment Mr. Gershkovich was arrested, his friends said they anticipated a long ordeal, based on the experiences of others.
Paul Whelanan American accused of espionage, has been jailed since 2018. Marc Fogela US citizen who taught at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced in 2022 to 14 years in prison. Alsu Kurmashevaeditor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a Russian-American citizen, faces a lengthy sentence on various charges.
“We realized that this was going to be a marathon, that this was not going to be resolved quickly, that we had to be prepared to tell this story for a long time, that he was my son,” Ms. Borzunova said. Russian regime news, that he was detained because of his work.”
