Russian authorities recently detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. They accused Gershkovich of being a spy and have held him on espionage charges since March 29. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he believes Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained.
Evan’s arrest is Russia’s latest attempt to intimidate foreign correspondents reporting in the country. Those constant threats, and now the very real risk of arrest, are common tactics. They make it easier for the Russian government to spread propaganda to its citizens and harder for the rest of the world to understand what’s happening inside Russia. The Kremlin’s actions make it nearly impossible to hear from the Russian people directly.
To help us understand Evan’s case and Russia’s control over the foreign press, we have Gulnoza Said and Oystein Bogen. Gulnoza is the Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Oystein is the D.C. Bureau Chief and Lead Correspondent for the Norwegian network TV 2. He spent years reporting from inside Russia and was detained six times while covering the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
Show Notes:
Russian authorities recently detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. They accused Gershkovich of being a spy and have held him on espionage charges since March 29. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he believes Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained.
Evan’s arrest is Russia’s latest attempt to intimidate foreign correspondents reporting in the country. Those constant threats, and now the very real risk of arrest, are common tactics. They make it easier for the Russian government to spread propaganda to its citizens and harder for the rest of the world to understand what’s happening inside Russia. The Kremlin’s actions make it nearly impossible to hear from the Russian people directly.
To help us understand Evan’s case and Russia’s control over the foreign press, we have Gulnoza Said and Oystein Bogen. Gulnoza is the Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Oystein is the D.C. Bureau Chief and Lead Correspondent for the Norwegian network TV 2. He spent years reporting from inside Russia and was detained six times while covering the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
Show Notes:
Paras Shah: Russian authorities recently detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. They accused Gershkovich of being a spy and have held him on espionage charges since March 29. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he believes Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained.
Evan’s arrest is Russia’s latest attempt to intimidate foreign correspondents reporting in the country. Those constant threats, and now the very real risk of arrest, are common tactics. They make it easier for the Russian government to spread propaganda to its citizens and harder for the rest of the world to understand what’s happening inside Russia. The Kremlin’s actions make it nearly impossible to hear from the Russian people directly.
Welcome to the Just Security podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah. To help us understand Evan’s case and Russia’s control over the foreign press, we have Gulnoza Said and Oystein Bogen. Gulnoza is the Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Oystein is the D.C. Bureau Chief and Lead Correspondent for the Norwegian network TV 2. He spent years reporting from inside Russia and was detained six times while covering the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
Hey Gulnoza, hey Oystein, thanks so much for joining the show today.
Oystein Bogen: Thanks for having us.
Paras: The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Evan is the first US journalist detained on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War. How do you think these charges will play out?
Gulnoza Said: When I heard about the charges, I was very concerned more so than if the charges were different in the same case, because what we know about other charges of journalists put on trial on espionage charges in Russia in recent years is that practically everything is kept secret. The trials are held behind closed doors, journalists and the general public cannot get any information about the details of the charges. And usually, in most of those cases, the investigations and the trials end with convictions and lengthy prison sentences.
One of the cases I can remember is the case of Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, who is now serving 22 years on state treason charges and the charges Russian authorities brought against him were very similar. He was also accused of passing information that was state secret to foreign powers. And then there was another case of a foreign journalist, a Ukrainian journalist, Roman Sushchenko, detained in 2018. In Moscow, he was actually a correspondent in France, and he was detained in Moscow when he was on a private trip. And he was also accused of espionage. And the trial was lengthy and held behind closed doors, and he was sentenced to 12 years in jail. And Ukrainian and Russian authorities agree to swap prisoners in 2019. That's how Roman Sushchenko got back to Ukraine. So the prospects in this case are not very good.
Oystein: Yeah, I've been doing a lot of covering a lot of espionage cases in Russia, in general against foreigners. And, you know, just to broaden the picture a little bit, I see this case following a similar pattern to what we've seen with Paul Whelan, for example. Whelan is a United States ex-Marine who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges in December 2018. So the good news for Evan is that he will eventually be swapped for a Russian prisoner sitting in jail somewhere in the West, not necessarily in the US. The bad news for Evan is that the Russians always insist on running the investigation on these cases all the way until they have a court date, and there will be a lengthy trial. And only after that Evan could be swapped for someone else. Now, if we take similar cases, for example, Paul Whelan's case, it took one and a half years from his arrest in December 2018 until his sentencing, so I see no chance that Evan will be released from jail until his sentencing if, you know, we look at the pattern that the Russians have been following.
And unfortunately, even after that, there will have to be a lengthy process of negotiations between Russia and the United States to find out how they're going to do the swap. And you know, who's going to be involved?
Paras: What do you think is motivating Putin and Russia right now? Why make this arrest at this moment?
Gulnoza: You know, Russian authorities, including Putin, they look at these things as a large game of maybe similar to chess, and try to calculate their moves. But at the same time, they are very opportunistic. So they, they saw this journalist, a relatively young person who went to places in Russia and outside Russia, interviewing people and reporting on the issues that nobody in the Russian government wants to see. And the way Evans reported was obviously very different from the Kremlin-set narrative. And the Russian authorities in the last 12 months have managed to establish quite a strict lead over independent reporting inside Russian. So if you're a Russian living in Russia, you have to use VPNs to get access to independent websites and get information that differs from the Kremlin narrative, especially the narrative on the war in Ukraine.
And here was foreign reporter, going to places, talking to people, and telling stories that nobody else practically, you know, very few people, foreign correspondents remaining in Russia, provided to Russians and to the rest of the world. So the immediate gain they have from this case is obviously to silence Evan. But then, of course, the charges of espionage are something that we can think is a part of a larger game, as Oystein said about prisoner swap.
One of the first questions I immediately asked myself when I heard about the detention of Evan was, okay, which high profile Russian is in an American jail right now? And I agree with Oystein when he said it doesn't have to be a Russian who is in an American jail, it could be any jail, and that person even could be detained at some point in the future. So maybe, you know, this was done in advance, just to use Evan as a bargaining chip with the West. And that is the part that I have no doubts about.
Paras: What type of conditions is Evan facing in prison right now?
Oystein: Well, the conditions of Evan at this moment are horrifying, both on a physical level and on a psychological level. He is currently being held in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, which is a high security prison run by the Russian intelligence service FSB, where you only have people awaiting trial for really serious crimes, for instance, espionage, for murder, for racketeering. And Evan will typically now be sitting in a jail cell, which measures about 90 square feet, maybe even smaller. He may be sitting alone, he may be sharing it with someone else.
In a physical sense, the conditions in there are really, really harsh. There is no heating inside the prison. There is no air conditioning, so meaning in the summer it's going to get excruciatingly hot. In the winter, it's going to be cold. There are lights on the roof, or the cells are kept on 24 hours a day. So it's very hard to sleep. And this will be Evan’s home for 23 hours every day. One hour a day, he will typically be led out to a small cage on the roof of the Lefortovo prison where he can get some fresh air, and being led there, he will be kept out of contact with any other prisoners. So one of the really tough things about sitting in the Lefortovo is that you don't see any other person probably for 14 days at a time.
Now, typically, every two weeks, Evan will be allowed to have a conversation with his defense lawyer, who will, you know, basically just update him on if there's been any progress on his case. And he will also be allowed every two weeks to get a representative from the United States Embassy to visit him, which will typically be a visit where they inform him, you know, what's happening outside, what's happening back home. And this is, I think, one of the main reasons that I think it's very important now to make everyone feel, you know, to the degree that it gets information from the outside, that he has support from other journalists, you know, from people around the world, from the American people.
Gulnoza: I also wanted to add, if I may, that as of today, we haven't heard about consular access. The Russian authorities have been hindering access that everyone has the right to have. His lawyers were able to see him only on Tuesday, which was, what, five days after his detention. And when I spoke to the representatives of the Wall Street Journal, the employer of Evan, they said that they were able to see everyone and they said he was in good spirits, healthy. But then they believe—well, first of all, they were not let alone, just the lawyers and Evan, so we're not speaking about the rights that inmates in the West may enjoy, in democratic countries, may enjoy.
Also, I wanted to point out that also the Russian laws, including the constitution, guarantee the presumption of innocence to everyone until they are convicted by the court and the court finds them guilty. That if you look at all the statements that high level government officials in Russia, have given on Evan’s case, and also the coverage of this case in the Russian media, especially the state funded media, it's awful. There is no such thing as presumption of innocence, you would think, when you listen to those reports, or you watch those talk shows. They just talk about everyone as if it is already proven that he is a spy, that he was caught red handed, and that's something that several high level officials repeated multiple times. So if you are an ordinary Russian who has been getting information from government funded, pro-Kremlin media outlets, then you would think, okay, this is a spy.
Paras: Oystein, you have reported from Russia many times and you've had the Russian authorities monitor you and actually detain you. So what happened in 2014, when you were reporting on the Sochi Olympics?
Oystein: Yeah, I've been actually reporting from Russia for more than 20 years. And this episode happened in 2013, right before the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. What basically happened was that my camera man and I were detained not once but six times by the Russian intelligence service, FSB, in a matter of 48 hours. We spent around 12 hours in detention. All our electronic devices were taken away and hacked during that time. We were interrogated really harshly. They wanted to know who our sources were, where we’d been, if we're going to report in a negative way on the forthcoming Olympics in Sochi, you know.
And the worst point came probably when they accused us of having taken drugs, just out of the blue, in one of those situations where the police stopped us. And this was a really serious situation, because this is what they have been doing against Russian journalists for more than 15 years, just to stop their reporting. And if you're charged, if you face a drug charge in Russia, you can be put away for, you know, eight or nine years in prison. Just you know, they can plant things on your body or in your car, so forth. So this situation resolves itself only after the involvement of the Norwegian government, which put a lot of pressure on the Russians to let us go, basically, and eventually they did claim that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding.
But we had pretty good documentation of what happened because we had hidden cameras on our bodies, and in our car, and so forth. And we made a quite powerful TV news story about what happened to us, which led to a huge embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin to such a degree that he actually later made an official apology.
Paras: And after that initial several days of detention, you continued to report in Russia for many years. So what other tactics have you seen by the Russian government to try to control your reporting?
Oystein: You know, there were years with continued harassment from the Russian authorities, overt surveillance, so you have people in cars following your every step wherever you work in Russia, people breaking into your hotel rooms, leaving traces that they're been there, turning up the hot water, opening the windows of the of the places you stay when you're out, you know, all kinds of harassment that really can get to you as a reporter, because it's obvious that they want you to stop doing your job and report on what's happening in Russia.
Paras: Did you ever consider leaving Russia or stopping your reporting?
Oystein: Well, eventually, I was denied getting a journalist visa. So I'm not able to travel to Russia anymore now, but I thought it a matter of principle to continue traveling to Russia and reporting from there, even though it was at the time scary, because, you know, I wouldn't let myself be intimidated.
Gulnoza: That's so great to hear Oystein. And I wanted to say, Paras, what Oystein described is very typical for the Russian authorities. They have all sorts of tools in their arsenal, when they want to intimidate, harass journalists and force them into silence. We have known of so many cases of journalists who have been imprisoned, some are serving lengthy prison terms.
When we at the Committee to Protect Journalists conducted our most recent prison census in December last year, there were 19 journalists in Russian jails, and they were in jail in direct retaliation for their work, and among them were Ukrainian journalists from occupied Crimea. Imprisonment is one of the tools Russian authorities have used for years to silence journalists.
One other tool is obviously murders of journalists. And since 1992, when we started keeping records at CPJ, more than 80 journalists have been killed in Russia, and 58 of them were confirmed cases of murders of journalists and most of them, more than 30, are cases of complete impunity, when no justice has been achieved. And many of those cases took place in the early days of Putin's rule, then we saw them resorting to other ways of trying to silence journalists like imprisonment, and just as Oystein said, bogus charges they can come up with can vary from planting drugs to espionage charges, and the case of Evan Gershkovich is the most recent and most prominent one with the harshest charges that we've seen in a long time.
Paras: Oystein, you’ve given us such a vivid firsthand account of the tactics that Russia uses, and Gulnoza’s CPJ research shows us how common those tactics are. There is a real crackdown on reporting in Russia, and that's a crackdown both on individuals and news organizations, but also on ideas. Russian propaganda says that the war in Ukraine is a success and the government prevents reporters from contradicting that. And we've also seen recent laws that restrict reporting on the LGBT community, for example. So is reporting in Russia effectively criminalized?
Gulnoza: Yes. Yes, I think by this time it's safe to say that there are no independent media left, there are individual journalists who are still reporting very brave people, some of them are at constant risk. I mean, all of them are at constant risk of detention for their reporting, because soon after Russia started its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it started amending its legislation. And as you know, they banned the use of the word “war” in regards to the conflict in Ukraine, and opened a lot of cases on, you know, charges of disseminating fakes about what they call the special operation in Ukraine, special military operation in Ukraine, and that forced hundreds of Russian journalists to flee Russia.
I traveled to some countries like Georgia and Latvia, where there are large groups of independent Russian journalists living in exile. And they told me their stories, how some of them had to flee Russia very quickly, just with one backpack. And they were constantly concerned about their parents or grandparents and even pets who remain in Russia, because Russian authorities also are known for intimidating and harassing relatives of those who are brave enough to speak against the authorities.
Oystein: As I would, if I may, I would add that I absolutely agree with Gulnoza. And I think I know of no independent Russian journalists who can operate effectively inside Russia anymore. All of my Russian colleagues, friends have, you know, escaped to other countries from where they continue to try to continue their work again. As for foreign journalists, I think that Russia has now crossed the threshold that I never believed they would—I hope that they wouldn't cross by arresting a Western journalist coming with espionage charges. I think Russia has made itself into the North Korea of Europe, basically, and that any reporter, foreign reporter who continues to work there does so at great, great personal risk.
Gulnoza: Yes, I agree. I think a certain Rubicon, so to speak, was crossed last week with the detention of Evan Gershkovich. I thought their methods would be different. I thought they would do what they did with Oystein, for example, not extending accreditation or denying visas, or making it very difficult, you know, for spouses or children to remain in the country. But the spin off charges came as a surprise to me. And after that, I'm sure every foreign correspondent who is still in Russia understands very well that they are at a very great risk.
Paras: What do we lose when we don't have foreign correspondents in country reporting on Russia?
Oystein: I think first of all, we take away from the Russian people their last chance to have their voices heard. And I think we lose sense of the atmosphere of fear, which is, at the moment, gripping every Russian citizen I think, as the country is sliding back towards Stalinist times. I think we're losing a lot, unfortunately, in that sense. And, you know, this is obviously what Vladimir Putin wants to be able to present his fairytale picture of what conditions are inside Russia to the world and to the Russian people.
Gulnoza: Yes, I think Oystein put it very well. Russian people don't have many other avenues to express their true opinions, except for talking to independent journalists, foreign and local. By silencing them one after another, either through detaining them or forcing them to flee Russia, as Oystein said, Russian authorities are just putting another iron curtain around Russia and between Russia and the rest of the world.
Oystein: If I may add, I think that there might still be an avenue in the future to cover Russia on the ground there. And I think that Russia is going to go back to a system where foreign journalists operating there need to have government minders around them, like China has today, like Iran has today, and like it was in the Soviet Union during Soviet times. They were not ideal conditions in any way. But the minder was also there to sort of act as an arbiter so that the secret police could not arrest you just like that, and they would ensure that you did not go places where, you know, the government found it, you know, unpleasant that you went.
So I think we're going to see a return to that, which is not to say that there will be free reporting in any way. But maybe, with a system like that, we might still get glimpses from what's happening on the ground in Russia
Gulnoza: You know, Paras, I was telling my younger colleague the other day how foreign correspondents worked in the Soviet Union. They had to go to the post office, and before they dispatched their reports through telegraph, a sensor, who had a full time job in the post office would check all their reports and sometimes not approve them. And fortunately, the technologies are different these days. And it's still possible to communicate with people inside Russia through different platforms, messaging apps, and such. But the Russian authorities have been very methodical in how they try to limit access to those platforms and apps that people use in order to communicate with the outside world.
The Russian authorities are likely to continue to try to isolate the Internet. So it would be very difficult for Russians to have access to the rest of the Internet, and also for other people who are not in Russia to have access to any information inside Russia.
Paras: If foreign correspondents are going to be censored, and they're going to have minders around them, then where do we go from here?
Oystein: Well, I think, as I said, I think that Russia is now, you know, deserves the title of Europe's North Korea, and I really don't see a future where with the current regime in power where you will have free reporting in Russia again, maybe not in this generation, sadly. I think that on a bigger scale, I think there's going to be more discontent among the Russian people, and that they are going to start, if not protesting, then they will feel the need to sort of have their voices heard in a way. So this is my hope that the Russian people themselves will maybe more actively try to establish contacts with, for example, journalists who want to cover Russia, and who are sitting abroad. And that they may, you know, it's going to be risky. But I truly hope that this would be one of the ways that we're still going to get information out of Russia.
Gulnoza: I don't see hope for the situation in Russia to improve as long as Putin is in power. I'm a bit skeptical about potential protests in Russia to tell you the truth, Oystein, so I'm not sure about that. I think what we may see, and what is probably more likely, in my opinion, is the discontent within the authorities themselves. That they start turning against each other. And in this situation, I think it's very important for the Western countries, those that set certain sanctions against individuals in the government, to see and potentially maybe strengthen this discord inside the government, because the more they turn against each other, the better it is and the more it is, you know, the more it weakens the the government, Putin's regime.
Paras:Is there anything that we haven't touched on yet that you'd like to add?
Gulnoza: I just wanted to add, again, going back to Evan Gershkovich’s case, that first of all, he should be allowed consular access as soon as possible, because that is his right, according to the international obligations of Russia. Second of all, I wanted to urge the US authorities to continue putting pressure on Russia, and to take all the measures at their disposal to make sure that Evan is free and safe back to the United States. I also think it's important for other democratic governments and international organizations to put pressure on Russia, to ensure that journalists who remain in Russia are safe and can report freely.
Oystein: Yes, I will also add something about Evan Gershkovich’s case, and I think it's, you know, I, it's so painful to know that there is a colleague, a journalist, colleague, now sitting in jail under horrible conditions in Russia. And I think that Western governments need to do everything they can to keep the pressure up on the Russian regime. I think, unfortunately, that is not going to help. And I think that the best thing that other journalists and people around the world can do for Evan now is to continue to show their support for his case, so that he will get the message inside the prison, that he's not forgotten that people are thinking about him, that people are fighting for him. And I think that's extremely important in his situation now, and to help him keep his spirits up.
Paras: Evan’s case is certainly on all of our minds. Oystein, Gulnoza, thanks so much for joining the show. Oystein, thank you for the reporting that you've done in Russia and the reporting that you continue to do. Gulnoza, thank you to you and CPJ for all the work that you do to monitor and protect journalists around the world.
Gulnoza: Thank you Paras.
Oystein: Thanks for having us on your show.
Paras: You can read all of Evan’s reporting, along with the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of his detention and resources for how to support his case on its website, which we’ll link to in the show notes.
The Just Security podcast is produced in partnership with NYU’s American Journalism Online program. AJO trains students to become world class journalists, no matter where they live or work. Find out more about AJO, and how you can apply, in our show notes.
This episode was hosted by me with co-production and editing by Tiffany Chang and Michelle Eigenheer. Our music is the song “The Parade” by Hey Pluto!
Special thanks to Clara Apt, Oystein Bogen, Viola Gienger, Alex Kapelman, Ben Montoya, and Gulnoza Said.
If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.