The Kremlin finally put our imprisoned colleague Evan Gershkovich on trial, and on Friday he was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony. The charge was espionage, but there was no public evidence presented. Evan is a journalist whose offense was telling the truth about what he saw in wartime Russia, so any evidence would have been concocted.
Taking innocent hostages has become part of Russia’s business model — a way of embarrassing its enemies and then using the hostage to trade for some Russian spy or criminal held in the West for legitimate reasons. Evan is especially notable because he is the first foreign journalist arrested in Russia since the Soviet era and was accredited to work in the country. His arrest sent a message of intimidation to every journalist working in Russia.
Evan was arrested during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in March of 2023. Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor in chief Emma Tucker rightly called the conviction “disgraceful.” Evan has “spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” they said.
The U.S. has called the Russian trial a sham. And in a statement Friday morning, President Biden said Evan “was targeted by the Russian government because he is a journalist and an American” and that there is “no question that Russia is wrongfully detaining Evan.”
The U.S. and other countries have been working for the release of Evan, and we pray for his liberation soon. But his detention is a grim reminder of the growing vulnerability of Americans abroad. Adversaries used to be worried about the consequences of taking U.S. citizens as hostages, but their fear has lessened along with American will and power.
Russia, Iran and others arrest Americans because they think there is little risk and a potential upside of a prisoner exchange. Vladimir Putin has suggested he would consider trading Evan for a “patriot,” and you can imagine the kind of person he means.
The world’s rogues are on the march, and the risks aren’t merely for those on the periphery of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. Americans can be pawns in their scheming for global advantage, and Evan is an unfortunate example.
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