An American Journalist Imprisoned as a Spy in Russia
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The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnik. In 2023, a young reporter for the Wall Street Journal working in Moscow was arrested by Russian authorities and charged with espionage. His name is Evan Gershkevich.
For Putin's regime to lock up an American journalist on charges that were obviously blatantly false was shocking. I'm a former Moscow correspondent myself, I'm on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and so I watched these threats to the press very closely, and this felt like a distinctly dangerous escalation of Putin's authoritarian tactics in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine. Evan Gershkevich spent sixteen months in prison before his release in an exchange of prisoners. He details his experience in a new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land. We published an excerpt from the book at New Yorker.com and I spoke to Evan Gershkevich last week at a live event in New York City.
Why you? There aren't an infinite number of of correspondence. Why you? Is it because you were out of town?
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