An American Journalist Imprisoned as a Spy in Russia

The New Yorker Radio Hour

David Remnick interviews Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich about his 16-month imprisonment in Russia on fabricated espionage charges. Gershkovich

Key takeaways

• Gershkovich was targeted because Putin ordered the FSB to catch a spy in late 2022 to use as leverage for trading Russian assets like Vadim Krasikov back from Germany.
• Prison conditions were calculated and psychological rather than physically brutal; he was allowed books, letters, and TV, but faced severe isolation and drudgery.

Main topics

• Wrongful imprisonment & espionage charges
• Hostage diplomacy & prisoner swaps

Notable quotes

"I think they've stacked Americans, basically."

Conclusion

Gershkovich's account underscores the human cost of geopolitical brink

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:02) The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Speaker 5 (0:12) This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In 2023, a young reporter for the Wall Street Journal working in Moscow was arrested by Russian authorities and charged with espionage. His name is Evan Gershkovich. For Putin's regime to lock up an American journalist on charges that were obviously blatantly false was shocking. I'm a former Moscow correspondent myself. I'm on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists. And so... I watched these threats to the press very closely, and this felt like a distinctly dangerous escalation of Putin's authoritarian tactics in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine. Evan Gershkovich spent 16 months in prison before his release in an exchange of prisoners. He details his experience in a new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land. We published an excerpt from the book at newyorker.com, and I spoke to Evan Gershkovich last week. at a live event in New York City. Speaker 5 (1:16) Why you? There are an infinite number of correspondence. Why you? Is it because you were out of town? Is it because you grew up in a Russian emigre household? Your language skills? What was it? Why you? Speaker 4 (1:30) So I think there's, I mean, I don't think I'll ever have the answer. And the book doesn't actually pose a complete answer. It's a bit of a question that's left open. But I think there's several reasons. Speaker 4 (1:44) One is that Putin addressed the FSB, the domestic intelligence agency, formerly the KGB, at the end of 22, near the end of the first year of the full-scale invasion, and said, you guys have to catch a spy next year. He said it in more official language, like you need to do a better job of catching traders. Because they need to crack Speaker 5 (2:06) down on traders or they needed fresh meat for a trade? So I Speaker 4 (2:10) think that they... It's partly he's telling them we need to shore up the war effort. So it's partly paranoia, but it's also fresh meat for a trade because at that point there was Paul Whelan in Russia, an American on espionage charges. And the Americans were trying to bring him home and the Russians were telling them, well, he's not going home until Vadim Krasikov, an FSBSS, comes home from Germany. He had murdered a guy in broad daylight. They're sent from Russia on a mission. And the Americans were saying, well, this is crazy. We can't get the Germans to do this. So then I think, you know, the kind of hostage diplomacy game had already been playing out for a few years. Like they had traded Trevor Reed, a Marine, Brittany Griner, a basketball player. And I think they were looking at how they could stack Americans, maybe do a two for one, like the way a trade works. And so you start looking at your environment. You have this order to catch a spy. Speaker 4 (3:10) You know, I think an American is the more the valuable ones, but you also need a loud, a kind of somebody who's going to make a splash. And so I think you start looking at a journalist as, you know, one option. And I was up to reporting that, you know, some people might call it brave. Other people might call it reckless. What do you call it? I call it a mix, I think, to be, you know, I think it's important reporting the work that we do, the work I was doing. No, Speaker 5 (3:38) but Speaker 4 (3:38) I Speaker 5 (3:38) mean the specific thing. You were pursuing... Speaker 5 (3:42) Russian military readiness and your attempt, I think, was to get material that would tell you more about the war effort, which is utterly verboten. And you met a source in Yekaterinburg, and he turned out to be part of a setup, obviously. You get arrested. And I want to know... After you've been brought in, they've pummeled you and you realize you're not being tortured, which is good news. Right, right, right. Speaker 5 (4:13) But what did you think would happen? Did you think that this would be a couple of days? This would be a year? This would be interminable? What did you think? I Speaker 4 (4:22) thought a year and a half to three. So, I mean, they... When they came in for the arrest and they announced that I'm under arrest, they say that they're with the FSB. So that's your first signal that it's not the local police. You know, they don't torture me. They don't try to get any information from me. They just present me with my charges. And so you quickly realize, oh, it's a setup, probably for a swap. And the first night I'm in prison, you know, we had a TV in prison. And on the state news channel, the host said, you know, this might be cynical to say, but we've replenished our exchange fund, which is the term the Russians use as the kind of like pool of people they use for a swap. And so then you start thinking, well, okay, if it's for a swap, this isn't going to. These things don't happen quickly. But Speaker 5 (5:06) you were that collected that you were able to think? Without excessive emotion about your... Speaker 4 (5:13) Ups and downs, like big ups and downs in the first week, two, three, and then lows. But in the beginning, you're in a kind of state of shock. I remember the first... It took me six days to start keeping a diary. And for when I started putting the book together, I actually called my Russian lawyers and started going over some of the first memories. And they remembered me saying... within the first week that I think this is for a swap and I think it's for Krasikov. Krasikov being? Being the assassin in Germany. Right. Speaker 5 (5:45) And Speaker 4 (5:45) I think they've stacked