Evan Gershkovich on What Life Inside Russia’s Prison System Was Like | WSJ

- In March 2023, during an interview with the source in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, our colleague, "Wall Street Journal" reporter Evan Gershkovich, was arrested and falsely accused of espionage. After 16 months in prison and a global campaign for his release- - Evan! - Evan was finally freed in August 2024 in the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. Ahead of the publication of his book, Evan and I sat down to discuss his arrest, his time in captivity, and the rising dangers journalists face reporting the news from around the world. Well, hello, Evan. It's great to have you here. - Good to be here. - There's so much I wanna ask you about. When you look back on it now, what was it about you that enabled you to get through those 16 months at a sort of physical level, but also a sort of mental level? - You know, we do land there, you speak the language, so you can have conversations with cellmates, the prison guards, the investigators, and so Russian obviously really helps. And I also started treating it like a reporting exercise because I kind of felt like this would be the most interesting way, you know, to spend my time. I'd already been planning a book before, and then when I got arrested, it sort of made sense that I just simply became a character in that. And so I sort of just started taking notes. - Talk me through the practicalities of that. - I mean, pen and paper, you obviously weren't given a laptop. Weren't you worried that they would take it away from you? How did you ensure that you kept copies? - So I had actual notebooks that I treated like a diary. So I would copy them each week onto a separate sheet of paper. - By hand? - By hand, and then mail them out to my lawyers, so I would have a backup essentially. - But everything presumably was being read- - Yes. - on the way out. - So they have the record of my diaries, but I just figured everything I was saying in the diaries, I didn't have anything to hide. So I was fine with them reading it and having it. - The book, which is a very compelling read, it opens very dramatically with your arrest. And I obviously remember the day that that happened, the sort of mounting, sort of dread across the afternoon when, you know, I knew we were trying to get in touch through, and then these rumors started circulating that an American had been arrested in Yekaterinburg. Can you talk us through what you remember of that moment? - I'd been in Russia for five and a half years at that point. The situation had shifted, and we had conversations in the newsroom about whether it was still safe to be there. And so when I went to that interview, you know, it wasn't completely blind to the risks. Still the thought of taking a foreign correspondent prisoner, you know, just still felt like a bar that they wouldn't cross. So when I was at the interview and they stormed in, the first feeling was pure fear and your heart starts beating really quickly. So I get up, the source I'm speaking to gets up. And then the thing that I remember the most from that moment is right before I'm dragged onto the ground, the source steps back into the crowd. Then I forget about that really quickly 'cause I have a hood over my head. I'm getting dragged out to a van outside. They take the hood off and a man is sitting across from me asking me who I work for, and I say "The Wall Street Journal," and the hood goes on and they start, you know, pummeling my midsection. They took me to the station, and then they just present me my charges. They're saying, "We're accusing you of espionage." At that point, I think it's for a swap. - So you were already at that stage thinking, you were aware of the fact that this could have been part of a wider hostage diplomacy? - There had been setups before while I was reporting in Russia, right? And that moment where the source is stepping back into the crowd, at that point, and you realize, "Okay, they're not gonna be torturing him." It's not like they're arresting us because they think that I'm actually up to espionage, but they need a person. - In the book, you write about how the arrest brought you closer to the people you cover. You write, "In prison, I had the chance to encounter many more of the nuts and bolts of the system that I ever had as a reporter on the outside." Was there a bit of you that found being on the inside as a journalist exciting? - Yeah, I mean, I think pretty early on, you know, it's kind of a conscious decision. Well, okay, I can't change the fact that I'm here. It's going to be the long haul. It's an espionage case. It's a swap case. It is interesting. You never really get to see this place. And you definitely don't get to talk to FSB officials. You don't get to talk to prison officials, some of the prisoners that end up there. And one of the hard things with covering Russia was that the system was quite closed. And I think being a reporter helps because you have a kind of a purpose. You are seeking out sometimes the places that other people actually wouldn't wanna see because they're interesting to you. It's a weird kind of personality trait. - While you were in prison, there was this big campaign going on. - Yeah. - How conscious of it were you? I mean, were you able to see any Western media at all? - It was an odd experience in the sense that they keep you very quarantined. And I didn't get phone calls or visits, but I had, you know, a TV with Russian news on it, fine, limiting in its own right, but it still was there. I had Russian newspapers also self-censoring because of the situation, still access to some information, friends writing letters. My lawyers could come for a visit once a week, and they would bring articles, Western articles translated. - Joining us now is Emma Tucker, editor and chief of "The Wall Street Journal." - But in terms of the campaign, I saw it right away, really early on, and it was, especially at the beginning, incredibly heartening. - Evan Gershkovich of "The Wall Street Journal." - Evan Gershkovich. - Evan Gershkovich. - Did you grapple with that idea that you had become the story and that outside the prison you'd sort of taken on a life of your own? I mean, you'd become a hashtag. - Yeah, I mean, it was a really weird experience. It was really dissociative. You know, I have this kind of dual personality from childhood of being, I have a Russian name in the home, an English name outside, and in prison I'm in a Russian speaking space. It's only Russian. I'm only going by my Russian name. And I'm seeing on TV, you know, Evan being discussed, and it's this character kind of like outside of me. And so I started kind of, I don't know if I'm going crazy, but it's a bit split personality disorder. It's not a position I'm completely comfortable in, and you know, and still, and not a position I'd wanted to be in. Like, I enjoy being in that chair, not in this one. - There were ongoing negotiations for your release from the minute you were taken. And at one point, there was a very real possibility of a swap, which included Navalny. How aware of that were you? - I was very aware of it. Putin seemed to be very focused on a single guy, which was Vadim Krasikov with the FSB assassin held in Germany. And so when we reported that, there seems to be, you know, this laser focus interest on him, and that Navalny was part of that. My lawyers brought that article and I read it. I mean, it was sort of an open secret. So when he gets killed, that was a big hit. And then when that happens, you think, "Oh God, I'm really going to be here for a long time." - Do you think that was your lowest moment? - Yeah, absolutely. Forgot where I was, sort of got a little lightheaded, and then couldn't think of anything else. It was a guy I knew personally. It was also this sort of incredible human being that comes only so often who can, against all odds, decide that he's going to try to be this Mandela-like figure, in a way kind of is, and he's gone. And what does that mean, that they actually killed him? You know, so I felt a sense of guilt that I was only thinking about myself. - And of course you didn't know it at the time, but in fact, it wasn't actually that long before a new deal started to take shape. During that month then, your trial came together very, very quickly. - Yes, my lawyer told me that she thinks the swap had come together, and she had gotten a call from the FSB telling her that the trial had to be moved up early, that she had to put in this request. - You know, we were very conscious of the fact that you had to be sentenced in order to be part of a swap. - My lawyer was saying to him, the FSB representative, that, you know, it's too quick, we need to prepare. And he goes, "It's in everybody's best interest for the trial to take place." So it was quite obvious, you know, why. - So you were sentenced to 16 years. Did you at any point think you could be facing 16 years? - No, I mean, I never thought I'd be facing 16 years from the beginning. They say, "Okay, we have to move up the trial. It's in everybody's best interest." Okay, swap's happening. Trial's done. But what happens after that? There's this phrase in Russian prisons. They just come and say, "Where's your things?" And you grab your things and you go. You never know where you're going. They never tell you. So they don't announce, "We're going to this prison, or we're moving here." And I was asking them, "Is this for the swap or not?" And nobody's responding. - So you were transferred back to Moscow, and then eventually taken to the airport. Did you get emotional at any point on this stage? - Other than elation, the two main emotions were on the bus to the airport, looking at Moscow and thinking that I might not ever see it again, and also about Navalny. So I was thinking about the fact that he had died, and then frustration at certain points because there was a lot of pomp and circumstance around the swap, which is totally fine. I understand it's a big deal, but in that moment you're thinking, "I just wanna see my family." - I was at Andrew's Airbase, as you know, with some of your colleagues, and we were waiting for you. - Eric! Again, you seem to be wanting to put all of us at ease because you made some joke to me about how you'd handed me this kind of doozy vibing into the job. What was going through your mind as you, you know, were back on American soil? - I hadn't slept in 24 hours, so not much. I mean, the main thing I wanted to do is just hang out with family. - You had your freedom taken away from you for 16 months. Was there anything once you got your freedom back that surprised you? - Yeah, that I wanted to go back at first. After you're used to that kind of life, you get back here, and it's also overwhelming that the first instinct of a former prisoner seems to be the safety and security of what they know. That was really surprising. But also how quickly you all, you come back to normal. I mean, not sort of psychologically, that takes time, but just sort of being in the world, because I would joke with my, you know, I didn't joke, I was serious with my lawyers that I would continue meditating and I wouldn't be on social media, and you know, prison's been good for this and that reason. They would laugh and say, "No, everybody's back on their phone in an hour." - Were you? - I mean, not in an hour, but really quickly. - So this ordeal happened, you've written this fantastic book, you'll soon be properly back in the saddle as a reporter for "The Journal." Has it changed the way you think about journalism? - It's changed the way I think about journalism today. The accepted rules and norms are changing of what a foreign correspondent is, what they're allowed to do. More countries are becoming authoritarian. More countries are more willing to no longer treat a foreign correspondent in, you know, not a diplomat, but kind of a diplomat, where you, if you're really unhappy with an outlet or a certain journalist, you don't extend their visa, you cancel their accreditation, you kick them out, you don't take them hostage. So I've though about that a great deal, about the risks we take, the situations we put ourselves in, but I also think those questions make sense at home too. I started reporting for this book to find out about why I was arrested, how the swap came together, and I went down to DC to talk to former Biden administration officials. People were quite scared to talk. The atmosphere is chilled and cooled here for journalists. I mean, we've had a situation since I've been released where one of our reporters has been doxed and attacked publicly. We've been sued for good reporting. And so I think I've thought more about where the world's heading.