The federal government’s top hostage negotiator reacted Thursday to the indictment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, 32, who’s been detained in Russia since March 2023.
Earlier in the day, the Russian Prosecutor General’s office announced it green-lit an espionage indictment against the journalist. If convicted, Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.
The reporter, his employer, and the U.S. government have denied the charges, with the latter deeming the reporter wrongfully detained.
Testifying Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on “The Plight of Americans Detained Abroad,” State Department Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens said, “this was not unexpected.”
Nevertheless, the development “doesn’t slow or stop us down,” he told lawmakers, noting that the government is also working on the release of Paul Whelan, another wrongfully detained American in Russia.
In a statement, Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal Publisher Almar Latour and WSJ editor in chief Emma Tucker called on the Biden administration “to redouble efforts to get Evan released.”
“Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge. Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” they said. “Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for simply doing his job. Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Evan’s case is an assault on free press.”
The Russian prosecutors said Gershkovich will be tried in Yekaterinburg, which is about 880 miles east of Moscow and the city where he was arrested last year.