Evan Gershkovich reflects on arrest in Russia and reclaiming his life after release

Amna Nawaz:

It's a story that now feels familiar. An American goes to Russia, gets arrested, and after spending time in prison and going through a sham legal process, the American is ultimately released in exchange for a Russian criminal jailed in America or elsewhere.

It's called a prisoner swap. And it's a tactic Russia's President Vladimir Putin has used time and again. In 2024, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, was freed from detention in Russia as part of a complex prisoner swap that included 16 people from seven different countries.

Evan details his arrest and his time in prison in his new book, "This Cursed Beautiful Land."

And he joins me here now.

I have said your name so many times. It's so nice to say, Evan Gershkovich, welcome to the "News Hour."

Evan Gershkovich, Author, "This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story": It's nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

Great to see you in person.

I want to back it up a little bit, so people know a little bit about you, because, like a lot of first-generation American kids, you're the child of Soviet emigres, you grew up with a foot in both worlds. You write about speaking Russian at home and watching Soviet cartoons in suburban New Jersey.

And then you write in the book: "Why were my parents after leaving the Soviet Union so fixated on preserving their Sovietness?"

Why was that? Did you find out?

Evan Gershkovich:

So, we have had an argument about that. I think it's nostalgia, and I think I'm right. They grew up in a place and then they left that place, and that place no longer exists in their lives.

Amna Nawaz:

Yes.

Evan Gershkovich:

They speak Russian to each other. They have Russian names. Why would they -- why would their kids be suddenly, like, completely foreign?

So my sister and I both had Russian names. Mine was Evan or Vanya and is. And so my home was Russian-speaking and the food was Russian. I think it's natural for immigrants to want their kids to retain something of themselves.

Amna Nawaz:

So you're on a reporting trip after a couple of years there to Yekaterinburg in 2023. You're meeting with a source who a colleague had referred you to, so a trusted source, who said he was going to provide insight into tank production, right? This is a part of your reporting into the Russian military buildup, possible invasion of Ukraine.

Evan Gershkovich:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

And he hands you papers, and as he does that, masked men stormed the restaurant. You write in the book: "It registered immediately that this wasn't the police. This wasn't a misunderstanding."

You seemed to know right away you were being arrested.

Evan Gershkovich:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

How did you know that?

Evan Gershkovich:

I was reporting fairly sensitive stories. I'd reported a story about how Vladimir Putin was getting information from the front, making decisions about the war.

I'd gone to Pskov, which hosts the 76th Division of the Russian airborne forces, which had occupied Bucha in Ukraine and committed a series of war crimes there. And I was speaking with people around the Kremlin trying to gauge always whether it was safe or not, and was getting the sense that they wanted -- they continued wanting to have foreign media there.

What I got wrong was that the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence service, which formerly the KGB during the Soviet Union, operates above that. And so when they come in to arrest me, or when they say they're FSB, that's when you know something's really serious.

And then the next signal is actually when they take me into the van and then they take me to the station. What I was expecting after 5.5 years of reporting is potential torture, being tied up to a chair like this, electrocuted. I thought, if they really think I'm a spy, perhaps they're going to be interrogating me for information or telling them about the source.

None of that happens. They just hand me my charges of espionage, and that's when I have, I describe it in the book, a sense of relief, of, oh, I know what this is about, how you started this segment with...

Amna Nawaz:

Yes.

Evan Gershkovich:

... people have been set up for swaps before.

Amna Nawaz:

Because you had seen previous, you had covered previous cases, right?

Evan Gershkovich:

And there was...

Amna Nawaz:

You have covered Trevor Reed. You covered Brittney Griner. So do you think right away, OK, I'm going to be freed in a swap eventually?

Evan Gershkovich:

While I was covering the Brittney Griner swap, a source had told me that the Russians were actually asking for Paul Whelan for Vadim Krasikov, who was an FSB assassin held in Germany at the time sentenced for life.

And leading up to my arrest, we were trying to pay attention to the negotiations that were going on, and the Americans were telling the Russians that this is insane. Germany's a third country. And the Russians were saying, well, if Paul Whelan is ever going to leave Russia, Krasikov needs to leave Germany.

And I had talked to my Russian lawyers early on, and they remember me in the first week saying, I think I they took me for Krasikov, like stacking Americans, basically, to go back to Washington and say, talk to Berlin.

Amna Nawaz:

I got to ask you about the way that a lot of folks in the rest of the world saw you during your time in detention, which was during your court hearings. And you write about in the book how you knew that would be when a lot of people would be able to put eyes on you.

You were held in this glass cage during your court hearings as this sort of sham process plays out. And a lot of folks thought you might have been having, like, a slight smirk on your face or a slight smile. What was going through your head in those moments?

Evan Gershkovich:

So, really early on, I start figuring out that they're going to treat me in a kind of special way, so to speak. So what -- the experience I went through is not like it's something pleasant. And it was very difficult and grueling in periods.

But I -- really early on, you could tell they're not using the methods that they can use, right? So I'm not getting tortured, I'm not getting deprived of food, hot water, and so on. So the Russians are really, really, really calculating. And in this case, I assume that they're taking somebody, Wall Street Journal correspondent, an American.

It's going to be global uproar. And they want to be able to say, well, we caught him red-handed. We have legal due process. We're not mistreating him, also a journalist that's going to write a book about it after.

And so, understanding that, you also understand sort of like where the lines are for you. My family and loved ones and everybody is freaking out at this point. They don't know what's happening with me. It's a black box. I understand this is the first time they're going to see me, but also global news media is going to cover it.

And so I wanted to send a kind of, I don't know a message -- maybe not a message, but present a kind of fit stance about my stance about the case. I was also told I can't speak in court. And so, instead of incurring any sort of potential bad punishment for speaking up, I decided, well, I can do it with how I present myself, and one of the ways is kind of like signaling what I think about the process.

And clearly it worked. Everybody was in on the joke, so to speak.

Amna Nawaz:

You write about a time, because your parents fly over to be there with you and help advocate for your release and keep you updated.

And you write about one time that your dad is able to speak with you, and he says: "We have come here with respect for you."

What was that like to hear that at that time?

Evan Gershkovich:

So I was racked with guilt at the beginning -- at the beginning, when the arrest took place and sort of thinking, it's one thing to take a risk to be reporting in Russia at the time, right?

And then the story we were reporting on, I mean, it's incredibly sensitive information during a war where Russia feels like it's not just at war with Ukraine, but with what it calls the collective West, with the U.S. at its backer, and I'm an American journalist. And so I'm thinking, like, why did we do this? Why did my newsroom and I decide that this is OK to be doing? My poor family.

And so I was worried when they were going to come to court. The conflict had developed to the point where Ukrainian drones had started reaching Moscow, and I'm worried about my parents coming, but also, yes, this point of, would they have kind of be mad at me, admonish me?

And so when they come into the courtroom, the first thing they turn and see me and they just smile. And so that was really this kind of immediate sense of relief. They come up. And the FSB investigator in my case allowed us five minutes to speak.

And so first it's jokes back and forth, catching up on various things. And then my dad paused my mom and me and said: "I just want to make sure I tell you this." And he softly said: "We have come -- yes, we have come here with respect for you."

And I think that's the most important thing he could have possibly said, because it immediately -- all those worries of have I done something wrong float away. It just helped me deal with it better.

Amna Nawaz:

You are, as we said, eventually freed in one of the most complicated swaps in recent history, negotiated by the Biden administration.

But I wonder how you look back on your 16 months in detention at a time, as you document in the book, everyone seemed to know, the prison guards, your investigators, everyone else, that you would eventually be freed in a swap.

Evan Gershkovich:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

And yet 16 months of your life go by while two political adversaries work it out. Does any of that make you angry now?

Evan Gershkovich:

I mean, what makes me angry is the system of hostage diplomacy, so to speak, using people cynically to return people. And I think that's something that we haven't completely dealt with.

But in terms of the actual swap, 16 months, that's not long. I reasoned early on that it would take a year-and-a-half to three. And, ultimately, I think it happened fairly quickly, 16 months compared to -- and some people have told me, well, it could have happened immediately. We all know what the swap's about.

But we still have to get there. And, ultimately, you -- I do hope that the moral good outweighs the moral bad in this case, given not just myself. I wasn't the only one released. But some of the people that were included in the swap compared to who Russia got in return, I hope says something about our values.

Amna Nawaz:

What's the adjustment after being released been like for you?

Evan Gershkovich:

Took just amount the -- just about the same amount of time as I was in. I went through the prison experience with this sort of really stoic approach of I can't let myself break down or cry. I tried not to be angry at the system, tried to stay level-headed, but that takes a toll.

And so when I am released, all that starts coming out, but also through adjustment to regular life, I described it like coming down from the International Space Station and having left kindergarten into adulthood all at the same time, because you're incredibly isolated. So I'm overwhelmed by all the senses, the sights, the smells, the sounds, and I can't sleep in the beginning at all.

And then you have lost your agency, so relearning how to make decisions, you know, what you say yes to, what you say no to. And so I was in PTSD therapy in the beginning, sort of tracking my symptoms. And then after six months, I graduated. Everything was improving over time.

Then I did talk therapy, and then I worked on the book, and that in a way is a kind of narrative therapy. You look at the traumatic event, you think about it, you process it, and you deal with it. And I think that also -- but that also keeps you in prison in a way, like the event...

(Crosstalk)

Amna Nawaz:

Writing the book keep you in prison?

Evan Gershkovich:

Yes. I was constantly thinking about it. And so it also, I think, kept me from completely returning to life. So I finished the book in the late spring, got back to work for The Journal, became a reporter again.

The news had faded. People were no longer recognizing me. I'm kind of just like back to my normal life and feeling like a normal person. And it's great, but it took a bit.

Amna Nawaz:

Would you go back to Russia again?

Evan Gershkovich:

One day, I would hope to be able to go back, but I just don't -- I'm not that optimistic.

Amna Nawaz:

The book is "This Cursed Beautiful Land." The author is Evan Gershkovich.

Evan, it's good to see you. Thank you so much.

Evan Gershkovich:

Thank you.