New Jersey leaders on Thursday said they were grateful for the release of Evan Gershkovich, a native of the Garden State and reporter at the Wall Street Journal who had been imprisoned in Russia for what the White House said were false accusations of spying for the CIA.
Gov. Phil Murphy praised President Joe Biden and U.S. allies for engaging in a complex negotiation that ended with Gershkovich and two other U.S. citizens released from Russian prisons as part of a swap that involved 24 prisoners.
“I am thrilled to hear that, after over a year of detention, Evan Gershkovich has been freed from Russia,” Murphy said in a statement. “Evan is a New Jersey native and Princeton High School graduate who was wrongfully convicted of espionage by the brutal Putin regime — a pawn in a politically-motivated game. I am praying for his safety and health as he returns home to his family and reacclimates to life back in the U.S.”
‘Their brutal ordeal is over’:Biden addresses largest prisoner swap since Cold War
What to know:
Who is Evan Gershkovich?
Gershkovich is a Wall Street Journal reporter who became the first U.S. journalist since the end of the Cold War to be arrested in Russia. He was accused of acquiring military information on behalf of the CIA about a Russian company that makes tanks. Gerskovich, the Journal, and the White House denied the accusations.
How long was he held?
Gershkovich was arrested in Russia in March 2023 while dining in a restaurant during a trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, Reuters reported. His release came weeks after he was sentenced last month to 16 years to a maximum security penal colony.
How old is he?
He is 32.
Where is he from?
Gershkovich grew up in Princeton. The son of Mikhail Gershkovich and Ella Milman, Jewish émigrés who fled the Soviet Union in the 1970s, he graduated from Princeton High School in 2010 and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he played soccer and studied philosophy and English.
How did he wind up in Russia?
Gershkovich was curious about his Russian heritage from a young age and grew up speaking Russian, the New York Times reported. After graduating from Bowdoin, he joined the Times as a news assistant. He moved to Russia in late 2017 to take a job as a reporter for The Moscow Times. After a stop at Agence France-Presse, he joined the Wall Street Journal in 2022.
What did he write about?
Gershkovich had been with the Journal only for a month before Russian invaded Ukraine. He wrote about a country at war, Reuters said, “where soldiers were beginning to come home in body bags and the Kremlin was cracking down hard on dissent.” Among the stories he covered: Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, the Wagner Group mercenary army, and the shift of the economy to a war footing.
How did he manage to do the job?
In February 2022, he and most other foreign journalists moved to London, the Times reported, but he frequently returned to Russia for reporting trips.
“He was one of a few Western journalists to continue to travel there as new laws imposed stiff prison sentences for anyone found guilty of ‘discrediting’ the armed forces or spreading false information about them,” Reuters wrote. But Gershkovich appeared to be aware of the risks, commenting on social media in 2022 that “reporting on Russia is now also a regular practice of watching people you know get locked away for years.” A year later, he, too, was arrested.
Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter for the Asbury Park Press. He has been writing about the New Jersey economy, housing market and health care industry since 1999. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.
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