Lawmakers Unite for Captive Journalist Gershkovich

Congressional leaders found a rare moment of unity Friday to issue a joint statement condemning the detention of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, marking one year since his captivity in Russian began.

“Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has now spent a year wrongfully detained by Putin’s government. We continue to condemn his baseless arrest, fabricated charges, and unjust imprisonment,” Speaker Mike Johnson R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky., said in the statement.

Gershkovich was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the modern successor to the Soviet’s KGB, on March 29, 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains of Yekaterinburg. The FSB claims he was there to obtain state secrets on behalf of the U.S. government but has not produced evidence to support the accusation. 

“The Kremlin’s attempts to silence Evan and intimidate other Western reporters will not impede the pursuit of truth,” the congressional statement continued.

President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken also issued separate statements condemning the anniversary. 

“Today we mark a painful anniversary: one year of American journalist Evan Gershkovich’s wrongful detention in Russia,” Biden said in a statement. “Shortly after his wholly unjust and illegal detention, he drafted a letter to his family from prison, writing, ‘I am not losing hope.’ As I have told Evan’s parents, I will never give up hope, either.”

“Evan has remained resilient despite the circumstances of living in Russian detention,” said Blinken in his statement. “Russia should end its practice of arbitrarily detaining individuals for political leverage and should immediately release Evan and Paul,” he said referring to Paul Whelan, another American citizen detained in Russia.

The Wall Street Journal left part of its front page blank Friday to honor its correspondent, posting an image of the commemoration on X.