American journalist Evan Gershkovich covers Russia as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. In March 2023, he was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service on espionage allegations. This was the first American journalist to be jailed in Russia on such grounds since the end of the Cold War.
The arrest has been denounced by the White House and media advocacy groups.
Experts have conjectured that the order for Gershkovich’s arrest was issued in anticipation of a prisoner exchange for one or more prominent Russians who were detained abroad.
After his arrest in 2023, Time magazine listed Gershkovich—who stayed in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine—as one of the 100 most influential individuals in the world. This article discusses Evan Gershkovich’s life and wife, so keep reading.
Who Is Evan Gershkovich?
Following reports that Jews would soon be deported to Siberia, Gershkovich’s parents, Ella and Mikhail, left the Soviet Union separately amid a wave of mass emigration. They arrived in the US in 1979 and finally met in New York City.
Following their relocation to Princeton, New Jersey, Gershkovich and his sister were raised speaking Russian at home.
In spite of his native tongue, Gershkovich rated his proficiency in Russian prior to his posting in Moscow as “quite basic,” eventually acquiring the majority of his current level of fluency.
Speaking with Russian journalists, Gershkovich recalled a plethora of gaffes and errors he made in his Russian at the start of his Moscow posting; he would say to people that he was “[sexually] aroused” to meet them (rather than “excited”), or he would use words that he was not aware were vulgar.
2010 saw Gershkovich graduate from Princeton High School, where he served as team captain for soccer.
He was an English and philosophy major at Bowdoin College, where he also wrote for The Bowdoin Review and The Bowdoin Orient and DJ’d for WBOR, the school radio station. 2014 saw his graduation.
Before joining The Wall Street Journal in January 2022, Gershkovich worked for The New York Times from 2016 to 2017, The Moscow Times from 2017 to 2020, and Agence France-Presse from 2020 to 2022.
Before his detention, he had spent six years living in Russia, where he worked as a journalist covering the conflict in Ukraine out of the Journal’s Moscow desk.
When he was detained, he was covering Wagner, a Russian mercenary military group, in Yekaterinburg.
Evan Gershkovich Arrest: Explore Details
On March 29, 2023, the counterintelligence department of the Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Gershkovich in Yekaterinburg while he was on a reporting trip for having information on a “Russian defence enterprise”.
According to U.S. officials, Gershkovich’s driver dropped him off at a steakhouse at 4 p.m. and two hours later, his phone was turned off. The Wall Street Journal hired a lawyer to find him at the FSB’s headquarters but couldn’t locate him.
The Kremlin endorsed his arrest hours later. Dmitri Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, said that he was “caught red-handed” but could not provide further details.
He was transferred to Moscow where he was formally arrested by a district court until May 29. He was then taken to Lefortovo Prison, a holding facility used by the Soviet Union to detain Soviet dissidents.
He was formally charged on April 7. United States ambassador to Russia Lynne M. Tracy met with Gershkovich on April 17 and wrote that he is “in good health and remains strong”.
Gershkovich was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service under charges of espionage, marking the first time an American journalist has been arrested in Russia on charges of spying since the Cold War.
Evan Gershkovich Wife
The wife of Evan Gershkovich is Ella Milman. Ella Milman, his wife, acknowledged the challenges facing the family but added, “It gives me comfort to see how strong he is,” that they have been able to correspond with Evan through letters.
She told U.N. correspondents, “We are glad he’s kept his sense of humour—teasing me that the prison food reminds him of my cooking.”
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