Evan Gershkovich, the fearless reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia

American journalist Evan Gershkovich, sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia on Friday, earned a reputation as a reporter who decided, despite the risks, to describe a country changed by the conflict in Ukraine and repression.

A 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent, he was arrested on March 29, 2023, in Yekaterinburg and put on trial in a case of unprecedented gravity for a foreign journalist since the collapse of the USSR on baseless charges of espionage.

And it was in this Ural city that he was sentenced today after an unusually quick trial that consisted of just three closed-door hearings.

In the courtroom, as the verdict was being passed, he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his head shaved (a common hairstyle for prisoners in Russia) and a beard growing on his tired face.

Evan Gershkovich is accused by Russian authorities of “espionage” for collecting information about a Russian tank factory on behalf of the CIA.

Gershkovich, his family, his boss and his country reject the accusations, which Russia has never proven, and call the case a sham and a hostage-taking.

This morning, the Kremlin again refused to comment on the situation, saying it was a “delicate matter.”

Strength and endurance
While in a pretrial detention center in Moscow, Lefortovo Prison, run by the FSB (Russian secret service), Gershkovich explained in his letters in recent months that he was suffering from the monotony of his detention.

But he also said he was in good spirits, used a lot of humor in his letters and kept up with the latest gossip about his friends’ careers and personal lives.

He also said he was awaiting a sentence to be transferred to a prison colony where, in theory, he should have more activity and social interaction, as well as more exposure to the sky. At Lefortovo, prisoners are highly isolated and kept in cells for 23 hours a day.

During the hearing, where the press was allowed to film him for a few minutes without speaking to him, the reporter greeted fellow journalists with a smile or made heart-shaped gestures.

In December 2023, his family praised his “resilience and unwavering strength” in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal.

Unlike many American journalists who left Russia after the February 2022 attack on Ukraine, Gershkovich chose to continue reporting.

Intrigued by the descriptions of how Russians were experiencing the conflict, he spoke to relatives of fallen soldiers, critics of President Vladimir Putin and analyzed the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy.

At the time of his arrest in Yekaterinburg, he was apparently working on sensitive topics: the Russian arms industry and the Wagner paramilitary group.

Extrovert and sociable
Born in New Jersey, near New York City, Gershkovich distinguished himself with the quality of his reporting in Russia, the country of his roots, where he knew the rules and superstitions instilled in him by his parents, Soviet Jews who fled the USSR in the late 1970s.

After graduating with a degree in English and philosophy, he decided to take the opposite path and settled in Russia.

In 2017, with an excellent command of Russian, he left his job as an editorial assistant at the New York Times to join the Moscow Times, the main English-language media outlet in Moscow, which was banned by a Russian court in July.

For about four years, he reported on the repression of the opposition, environmental disasters, the devastating impact of Covid-19 and Russian traditions such as the art of the banya, the Russian bathhouse (sauna) he regularly visited.

An extrovert by nature, always ready to laugh, he knows how to “put all his sources at ease because he always makes them feel that he cares deeply about their stories,” says Petr Sauer, a journalist for the British daily newspaper The Guardian and a close friend of Hershkowitz.

When he joined AFP’s Moscow office in late 2020, he continued in the same vein, telling the story of a Russian opponent campaigning from prison, or the daily lives of firefighters battling huge blazes in Siberia.

The football fan and amateur player also delved into the history of Sheriff Tiraspol, a club from the pro-Russian Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria that played in the Champions League in 2021.

In early 2022, he joined the prestigious Wall Street Journal, weeks before Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Full of humor, even while in prison, he joked in one letter to his mother, referring to the Russian porridge she cooked for him as a child, a dish that filled homes and cells across the country.

He said his mother’s cooking prepared him “for better or for worse” for prison.