This editorial was originally published by The New York Times and was distributed by The Associated Press.
•••
The only surprise in the guilty verdict against Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent who was arrested in Russia last year on phony charges of espionage, was that it came so quickly. The charge itself was a farce. No evidence was ever made public, the hearings were held in secret, and Gershkovich’s lawyers were barred from saying anything in public about the case.
Gershkovich’s arrest, trial and conviction all serve President Vladimir Putin’s goal of silencing any honest reporting from inside Russia about the invasion of Ukraine and of making Russians even warier of speaking with any foreigner about the war.
Independent Russian news outlets have been almost entirely shut down and their journalists imprisoned or forced to leave the country, so foreign correspondents are among the few remaining sources of independent reporting from inside Russia. Gershkovich’s last published article before his arrest, on March 29, 2023, was headlined “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone” — just the sort of vital independent journalism that challenges Putin’s claims of a strong and vibrant Russia fighting a just war.
Russian prosecutors claimed that Gershkovich, acting on instructions from Washington, used “painstaking conspiratorial methods” to obtain “secret information” about Uralvagonzavod, a Russian weapons factory near Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested and tried.
The existence of this massive industrial complex is well known, but the charge of espionage allowed Russian prosecutors to keep the entire proceeding secret while fueling Putin’s propaganda about efforts by the United States and Europe to destabilize Russia.
Putin’s crackdown on free expression, especially about the war in Ukraine, is unrelenting. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 in detention, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian dual citizen and an editor with the U.S.-government- funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Over the past few weeks, the Kremlin has banned 81 European Union media outlets, including Der Spiegel and Politico, for “systematically disseminating false information about the progress of the special military operation” — the only legal way to refer to the war against Ukraine. Russian authorities have also designated The Moscow Times, an English-language publication that now publishes from outside Russia, an “ undesirable organization,” making it dangerous for anyone in Russia to have any contact with it. Masha Gessen, a New York Times Opinion columnist, was tried in absentia and sentenced to eight years in prison last week for criticizing the Russian military.
Just as important to Putin’s political aims: He has been able to use Gershkovich as a hostage, as he did with the American basketball player Brittney Griner, who was freed in 2022 after 10 months in prison in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the United States.
There is a sliver of good news here. This trial could have dragged on for years if Putin had so desired. That it ended just hours after closing arguments strongly suggests that a deal has been reached on swapping the American reporter for a Russian imprisoned in the West. Last week the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that the United States and Russia were holding talks on a possible swap. The most likely candidate is believed to be Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of an exiled Chechen commander in Berlin. If a swap happens, the nation should welcome the possibility that Gershkovich could be quickly released and returned to his family in the United States.
But Gershkovich has already spent 16 months in detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, and the conviction means he would have to serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony. Several other Americans are also being held in Russia, and one or more of them could also be released as part of a deal.
Any celebration over Gershkovich’s potential release is overshadowed by the utter cynicism of Russian authorities’ decision to detain him in the first place.
Putin’s police state has made a habit of seizing hostages any time one of its agents is caught. And yet the determination of reporters like Gershkovich, and the many Russians who are risking their freedom to describe the realities behind Putin’s elaborate myths, has not been crushed. They have no illusions about the risks, but they understand the critical importance of puncturing Putin’s lies. That is journalism, not espionage, and it deserves the unwavering support of the United States and the world.
