Evan Gershkovich: American reporter marks one year in a Moscow prison on 'unjust' charges

Friday marked a full year since American journalist Evan Gershkovich was jailed in Russia on spying charges, allegations that have been derided as completely false by his employer, his family and the U.S. president.

Gershkovich, an officially accredited Russia correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested during a reporting trip to the southern city of Yekaterinburg on March 29, 2023, and has been held in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison ever since, while journalists and political leaders around the world rally for his freedom.

“It is well past time for this talented reporter and innocent man to come home,” Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker wrote Friday.

Look back: Who is Evan Gershkovich? What we know about WSJ reporter arrested by Russia for espionage

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that any possible prisoner swap that might lead to Gershkovich’s release depended on “absolute silence.”

"As for exchange matters, we have repeatedly stressed that there are certain contacts, but they must be carried out in absolute silence," Peskov said.

But the last 12 months have seen little public movement toward the imprisoned journalist’s freedom. Gershkovich, 32, is charged with espionage, which he denies.

As the journalist awaits trial, Russian President Vladimir Putin has left no question about any verdict that might be handed down.

“If a person gets secret information, and does that in a conspiratorial manner, then this is qualified as espionage, and that is exactly what he was doing,” Putin told media personality Tucker Carlson last month, adding that Gershkovich was “caught red-handed.”

More: In Tucker Carlson interview, Putin's plans for Ukraine appear to echo Trump's

Lynn Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia blasted the charges. “Accusations against Evan are categorically untrue,” she said Thursday. “They are not a different interpretation of circumstances, they are fiction.”

A 'wholly unjust and illegal' detention: Biden

President Joe Biden said Friday he would make Russia pay for Gershkovich’s "wholly unjust and illegal" detention."As I have told Evan's parents, I will never give up hope either. We will continue working every day to secure his release," Biden said in a statement.

"We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia's appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips."

More: USA TODAY stands with Evan Gershkovich. Russia's arrest of WSJ reporter raises the stakes.

Gershkovich’s detention has been extended to June 30. The lanky son of Cold War-era Soviet emigres to the U.S. appears at occasional Moscow court sessions where he is kept penned in a plexiglass enclosure.

“Until he’s out, not enough has been done by anyone,” Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour told Politico. “And that goes for all of us.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Evan Gershkovich: WSJ reporter in Russia prison on 'fiction' charges