Russia Arrests American Journalist Evan Gershkovich on Spying Charges Transcript

For the first time in nearly 40 years, Russian authorities have arrested an American journalist and charged him with espionage. Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal was detained by intelligence agents yesterday while reporting in Central Russia. It’s an escalation of a Kremlin campaign that has targeted independent media, opposition politicians and any critics of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. Nick Schifrin begins our coverage.

It’s a moment not seen since the Cold War, an American journalist accused of espionage detained by Russian police. Russian intelligence agents arrested Evan Gershkovich as he reported 900 miles east of Moscow. Police took him into a closed court hearing and the Federal Security Service or F.S.B accused him of “acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state’s secret.”

[foreign language 00:01:00].

Under the cover of journalist activity, this person has been involved in a completely different kind of activity. What he has been doing in Yekaterinburg, I’m speaking about this case only for now, was not journalism.

In response, the Wall Street journalist said it vehemently denies the allegations from the F.S.B and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter.

The charges against him are ridiculous.

In Washington, the US said it was trying to gain consular access and warned Americans living in Russia to leave.

This is incredibly, sadly common for Russia to detain Americans, and that’s why we’ve been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe for Americans right now in Russia.

Today, Russia holds another American, former Marine, Paul Whelan, arrested in December, 2018. A Russian court convicted him on espionage charges that Whelan and the US call a sham. But in today’s Russia, it is Russians who were most often targeted. The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least seven Russian journalists have been arrested and charged since the full scale invasion of Ukraine. This week, single father, Alexei [inaudible 00:02:12] faced punishment for questioning the war on social media. Russian authorities investigated him after his daughter made this school drawing, glory to Ukraine, no to war. Authorities separated them. She was forced to an orphanage and he faces two years in prison. He fled and was detained in Belarus, but the daughter has been trying to comfort the father. She wrote a letter, “Please don’t worry about me. Please don’t give up. I love you. You’re my hero.” Since the invasion, the human rights organization, OVD-Info says, police have detained nearly 20,000 for criticizing the war. Among them, opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza. He’s a longtime Kremlin critic and target. Twice he’s been poisoned.

I couldn’t breathe and at this stage when you’re lying there trying to gasp for air, I felt just life slowly going out of the whole body.

We interviewed him and his wife, Yevgeniya, in 2017. And yet after that, after the full scale invasion, he returned to Russia to continue his work. Last April, authorities arrested him. He’s now on trial for high treason. Have you ever asked him not to go back?

It is terrifying. I’m not going to lie to you, but I want him to continue to do what he thinks is important, what he thinks is right.

And now Yevgeniya has continued Vladimir’s work. She’s the Free Russia Foundation’s Director for Advocacy. She vows to keep fighting for her husband and for justice for as long as it takes. For the PBS News Hour, I’m Nick Schifrin.

And with us once again is Yevgeniya Kara-Murza and Andrew Weiss joins us, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the George H.W Bush and Clinton administrations. Thank you both for being here. Yevgeniya, I’ll start with you because Russia earlier this month began the closed door trial of your husband. He faces more than two decades in prison on charges including treason for comments critical of the Kremlin. How is he doing and how is his case unfolding?

Thank you very much for having me here. Everything in my husband’s case, as you said, is happening behind closed doors. The entire trial is happening behind closed doors because of course, the Russian authorities are afraid to give him a platform, even if it is a courtroom to speak, and he will continue to speak out. He will continue to pose this regime as he has been doing for all these years. And yes, the accusations against him include dissemination of not only false information about the war in Ukraine, or in other words, denouncing the war crimes committed by the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine, and calling for the creation of a tribunal, Nuremberg style tribunal to prosecute all those responsible. And high treason, as you mentioned, for public speeches that he made on different international platforms in which he denounced the regime, talked about political persecution in Russia and the ever-growing number of political prisoners in the Russian Federation.

How are detainees like your husband treated?

Well, it really depends. I can tell you that the Russian authorities are now using a whole spectrum of intimidating techniques and repressive mechanisms that include the use of punitive psychiatry, torture, sexual violence, and prison terms that can go up to 15 years for just saying no to the war, for protesting against it in any way, even by making a post on social media, putting a like under someone else’s post, for reposting information, they call dissemination of not only false information about the war, about the special operation. And for any kind of protest against the official narrative, the current Russian regime wants to portray anyone who opposes the official narrative as either criminal, an insane person, or a traitor. This is what we have in Russia today.

Vladimir Putin is focused on suppressing dissent, but you, as I understand it, say it’s a mistake to believe that he has been successful in suffocating the resistance movement.

Absolutely. I believe that he very much depends on creating this image for the entire world, this image in which the entire Russian population stands behind him and the war. The number of people detained over the last year, and that’s over 20,000 people, for protesting against the war and against official Kremlin policies show that there are probably millions of people who are against what is happening, but are afraid to speak up because they see what happens to those who do, who dare to oppose the regime.

Andrew Weiss, the Biden White House today condemned the detention of the American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, for what Moscow described as espionage. The White House National Security Spokesperson, John Kirby said the administration had no advanced awareness of a new Russian effort to target American journalists. Does his detention read to you like a stepped up effort on the part of the Russians to target Americans with the end goal of a prisoner swap?

It’s really hard to speculate at this point given how few concrete facts have been released, and we always need to be really careful not to assume that what the Russians are saying is true. In this instance, a small number of Western journalists have gone back or gone in and out since the war began. At the beginning of the war, everyone left and the message from the US administration has been really clear. No Americans should be in Russia right now due to the threat of arbitrary detention or worse. And now you have something that looks much worse, which is espionage charges that carry with them, as Ms. Kara-Murza was saying, real potential for a very long prison sentence.

The official Russian line is that he is a spy. The White House today said that’s completely unsubstantiated. If you look at his recent reporting, though, he was writing about Russia’s economic struggles, its troubles on the battlefield, the Wagner Group, a paramilitary force with ties to Putin. Does any of that suggest to you why he might have been targeted?

The Western reporters who have gone back to Russia for these short term reporting trips have really punctured the veil of lies, and they have been able to report and tell the world the truth about how Russian society is reacting to the war, the problems in the economy, and the problems within the Russian security establishment. Russian government doesn’t like criticism, doesn’t like scrutiny, and in a situation like this, I think they are trying to push Western journalists back out of the country and make it clear that if Mr. Gershkovich can be targeted, so can you.

We saw what it took to secure the release of Brittney Griner. Paul Whelan has been in Russia, held captive for more than four years. What are the prospects facing Evan Gershkovich?

It’s a grim picture at the moment. No one who’s been formally accused of espionage or treason has been acquitted in Russia since the late 1990s. There was one case in the Cold War era in 1986 of a western journalist, Nicholas Daniloff, who was arrested on espionage charges. He was released in a complex maneuver involving the US and Soviet governments at that time. He wasn’t convicted of espionage. So I think the focus right now has to be on not treating the Russian assertions as accurate. I think it’s on its face, a laughable accusation, but also being really careful to do whatever we can to make sure that we don’t endanger Mr. Gershkovich more than he already is.

Yevgeniya, as we wrap up our conversation, what do you make of that and what are we to make of this current moment?

Well, this is a regime that does not value human life, has never valued human life. This is a regime that has been committing those kind of crimes, including war crimes for years. This regime has already committed war crimes in Chechnya and in Syria. It has already carried out acts of aggression against our neighbors in Georgia and in Ukraine in 2014 by annexing Crimea. This is a regime that holds the longest surveying Russian political prisoner, is [inaudible 00:10:54]. He’s been behind bars for 20 years in violation of 2 decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and several demands by the Committee of Ministers for his immediate release. This is a regime that held over 300 political prisoners even before the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Now the numbers are growing by the day. It will take hostages. It will try to erase Ukraine from the face of the Earth. It will accompany this war of aggression by genocide. It will carry out all the possible crimes against its own population. This is why this regime has to come down. It has to be brought down. The only way for Russia to stop being a threat to itself and to its neighbors is for it to become a democracy. This regime cannot be transformed into a democracy. It has to stand trial for all the crimes committed against the Russian people, and against everyone else around. This is the only way.

Andrew Weiss, our thanks to you. And Yevgeniya Kara-Murza, our thoughts are with you, your family, and your husband, Vladimir. Thank you.