In his almost 15 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo jail, Evan Gershkovich has plowed via Russian literary classics like “Struggle and Peace,” and performed slow-moving chess by mail along with his father in the US. He tries to maintain himself in form throughout the hourlong train interval he’s permitted every day.
Buddies who correspond with him describe Mr. Gershkovich, a Wall Road Journal reporter, as constructive, robust and barely discouraged, regardless of dealing with the official wrath of President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.
“He could have ups and downs like everybody else, however he stays assured in himself, in his rightness,” mentioned Maria Borzunova, a Russian journalist and a pal of Mr. Gershkovich.
Mr. Gershkovich went on trial Wednesday, dealing with as much as 20 years in jail on an espionage cost that he, his employer and the U.S. State Division vehemently deny.
Shortly earlier than the proceedings began, journalists filmed Mr. Gershkovich, along with his head not too long ago shaved, standing in a glass cage within the courtroom. After a number of hours, the courtroom scheduled the following session within the case for Aug. 13, in keeping with the Russian state information company Tass.
On the coronary heart of Mr. Gershkovich’s ordeal is a void — the absence of any proof made public by the Russian authorities to assist their declare that he was a spy. Neither is any more likely to emerge from his trial in Yekaterinburg, which has been declared secret, with any observers barred from attending, and his legal professionals prohibited from publicly revealing something they study.
“We predict that it’s a sham trial primarily based on pretend fees, subsequently the proceedings might be farcical,” Almar Latour, the writer of The Wall Road Journal, mentioned in an interview. It’s not possible to foretell how a trial will have an effect on efforts to acquire Mr. Gershkovich’s launch, he added.
In Russian trials, conviction is basically a foregone conclusion, particularly when — as on this case — the Kremlin has weighed in. The decide listening to the case has boasted to a neighborhood information outlet that in a profession spanning many years, he has acquitted simply 4 defendants.
For greater than 5 years, Mr. Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen who grew up in New Jersey, roamed Russia as a reporter, rising to like the nation, buddies say. The International Ministry repeatedly reissued his reporting credentials.
Now he could also be Kremlin fodder for a prisoner swap, as different imprisoned People have been not too long ago. In hammering out such an trade, Russia insists that first a trial should be accomplished, ostensibly placing each side on equal authorized footing.
“He’s a Kremlin chip, and so they need to commerce him,” mentioned Pjotr Sauer, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper and an in depth pal of Mr. Gershkovich.
In April 2022, Russia traded Trevor Reed, an American convicted of assaulting Russian law enforcement officials, for a Russian pilot imprisoned on cocaine trafficking fees in the US. Within the highest-profile latest case, in December 2022, the US traded a infamous arms vendor, Victor Bout, for Brittney Griner, an American basketball star imprisoned for hashish possession.
Requested in a tv interview in February about Mr. Gershkovich’s destiny, Mr. Putin mentioned negotiations had been underway, however he talked about looking for additional concessions. He prompt that he could be keen to commerce the reporter for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian sentenced to life in jail in Germany for the brazen 2019 homicide of a Chechen former separatist fighter in a downtown Berlin park.
Mr. Putin advised overseas wire companies this month {that a} dialogue between intelligence companies was one of the simplest ways to resolve such points. A senior Russian diplomat mentioned that negotiations had been being carried out via a devoted, secret channel.
Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained in Yekaterinburg, simply east of the Ural Mountains, in March 2023. Prosecutors, of their imprecise statements on the case, have mentioned that “underneath directions from the C.I.A.” and “utilizing painstaking conspiratorial strategies,” he “was gathering secret info” a few manufacturing facility that produces tanks and different weapons.
Mr. Gershkovich had been a part of a coterie of younger Western and Russian journalists primarily based in Moscow. They took their position of explaining Russia to outsiders critically: always working to enhance their command of the language, touring extensively and sharing a standard weekend cottage in Peredelkino, a hamlet on Moscow’s outskirts generally known as a retreat for writers.
Mr. Gershkovich, raised by Soviet émigré mother and father, adopted the title Vanya, and relished Russian rituals like saunas and mushroom searching, together with sports activities together with soccer and snowboarding, buddies mentioned. His household was not obtainable to touch upon the trial, mentioned Ashley Huston, a Journal spokeswoman.
However the local weather for journalists in Russia turned threatening with the nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin handed draconian legal guidelines limiting how the conflict might be described, and shuttered quite a few impartial Russian shops. Mr. Gershkovich was among the many many journalists who left the nation, however he returned periodically to gauge how the battle was altering Russia.
On condition that no Western correspondent had been charged with spying for the reason that Soviet period, the prospect of imprisonment appeared troubling however distant. Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest crossed a line, Ms. Borzunova mentioned, making it clear that every one reporters, not simply Russians, had been in danger.
“We thought that official accreditation meant one thing,” she mentioned, “but it surely doesn’t.”
Lefortovo has lengthy been the principle facility for holding dissidents and different high-profile detainees within the capital. Prisoners are saved of their cells 23 hours a day, with one hour of “train” time in a equally cramped area that’s open to the sky.
Mr. Gershkovich has met along with his legal professionals, and the U.S. ambassador, Lynne Tracey, has been allowed occasional visits. The State Division has declared him “wrongfully detained.”
His buddies swung into motion with a letter-writing marketing campaign to maintain him linked to the skin world. They organized the herculean process of translating them into Russian, to clean their approval by jail censors.
The trouble has drawn greater than 5,000 letters from world wide written by everybody from grandmothers to grade faculty pupils. Many individuals detailed troublesome experiences that they had endured, mentioned Polina Ivanova, a reporter for The Monetary Instances.
Peter Molthoff, from the Netherlands, described spending two years in a Nazi jail camp throughout World Struggle II. Now 99, he wrote that he knew what Mr. Gershkovich was going via, encouraging him to remain robust and noting that he, himself, had constructed an attractive life after his launch.
Mr. Gershkovich’s buddies have been impressed partly by his constantly excessive morale. In pretrial courtroom hearings, standing in a holding cage for defendants, he often greeted his fellow reporters with a smile and generally held his arms within the form of a coronary heart.
He has maintained a humorousness, suggesting in letters to buddies that jail gruel was no worse than a few of his childhood meals. Mr. Gershkovich, who as soon as labored in a clerical position in The New York Instances’s newsroom, had been a prepare dinner briefly earlier than getting into journalism. His buddies put together weekly care packages to complement the shortage of fruit and greens in Russian prisons, including sweet for his birthday.
He has returned the favor, ensuring to ship them birthday or vacation greetings. He asks buddies to replace him about their lives, even encouraging them to ship him separate letters describing the identical social occasions. “Like an actual journalist, he desires completely different sources,” mentioned Mr. Sauer.
A voracious reader, Mr. Gershkovich scoured the jail library for a few of the thick, foundational tomes of Russian literature, together with Tolstoy’s “Struggle and Peace” and Vasily Grossman’s “Life and Destiny.” He additionally reads poetry and works about folks behind bars. Initially his buddies tried to learn the identical texts, to run a e book membership by correspondence, mentioned Ms. Ivanova, however they may not hold tempo with him.
Time in jail has polished his command of the language. “He had child Russian when he arrived, there was no slang, now it’s lyrical, lovely,” mentioned Mr. Sauer.
From the second Mr. Gershkovich was arrested, his buddies mentioned they anticipated a protracted ordeal, given the expertise of others.
Paul Whelan, an American charged with espionage, has been jailed since 2018. Marc Fogel, a U.S. citizen who taught on the Anglo-American College in Moscow, was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced in 2022 to 14 years in a penal colony. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a twin Russian American citizen, faces an prolonged sentence on varied fees.
“We realized that this was going to be a marathon,” mentioned Ms. Borzunova, “that this was not going to be resolved shortly, that we needed to put together to inform this story for a very long time, that he was a hostage of the Russian regime, that he was detained for his work.”
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia.
