The Wall Street Journal published a blank front page to mark one year since its reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained in Russia on espionage charges. Gershkovich, his employer, and the US government have vociferously denied Moscow’s espionage charges against the 32-year-old.
He became the first US journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War when he was detained on March 29 last year.
“As I have told Evan’s parents, I will never give up hope either. We will continue working every day to secure his release,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement released by the White House that called the journalist’s detention “wholly unjust and illegal”.
“We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia’s appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips,” Biden added.
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has claimed Gershkovich had been trying to obtain military secrets.
Gershkovich has now spent a year at Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gershkovich’s arrest was spotlighting the purported restrictive media landscape in Russia even “more oppressive.”
Biden and Blinken also condemned the detention of Paul Whelan, an ex-Marine arrested in Moscow in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison on spying charges in 2020.
Whelan and the US government deny the charges.
Also watch | Biden asks Russia to let Evan Gershkovich go
“To Evan, to Paul Whelan, and to all Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad: We are with you. And we will never stop working to bring you home,” Biden said.
The Wall Street Journal published a piece on Gershkovich’s year in Russian detention.
“There has been a burst of weddings and engagements of friends from high school and college. He has missed a year of monumental changes and intrigue in Russian reporting—a cornerstone of many of his friendships with reporters and a key part of his identity. He has missed a year of Arsenal, the Mets, and the Jets—his favorite teams. He has missed the final episodes of ‘Succession’ the finale of ‘Ted Lasso’ and the 16th season of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.’,” the paper wrote.
(With inputs from agencies)
