Inside the WSJ’s ‘Very Intense’ Effort to Free Evan Gershkovich

A year ago today Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent, was meeting with a source at a steakhouse when FSB agents arrested him and charged him with espionage, an allegation he and the Journal said was absurd. The U.S. government agreed. In less than two weeks, the State Department declared that Gershkovich was “wrongfully detained,” an official status that commits the Biden administration to work for his release.

Almar Latour is the publisher of the Journal and the CEO of Dow Jones. One responsibility he did not expect when he took this job in 2020 was assisting in a hostage negotiation with Vladimir Putin. Latour has played a key role in the legal and diplomatic effort to free Gershkovich. He has worked with the Biden administration, foreign governments and through private channels to figure out what exactly Putin wants to secure the 32-year-old journalist’s freedom.

I spoke with Latour on this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive to learn the inside story of this effort. We discussed how the shadow of basketball star Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia is influencing talks to bring Evan home; what Gershkovich’s detention means for Paul Whelan, the only other American considered by the U.S. to be wrongfully detained in Russia.; why a Russian hitman who is serving a life sentence in Germany for murder may be the key to unlocking a deal with Putin; and how the 2024 election may affect Gershkovich’s fate.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity with help from Deep Dive Senior Producer Alex Keeney and Producer Kara Tabor. 

What is the current status of the U.S. government's efforts to bring Evan home and how has this played out over the past year?

Without speaking for the administration in any form, I would characterize it as a very intense effort. There are people dedicated to situations like these in the State Department. The Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs is a unit within the State Department that concentrates on cases like these, not necessarily around press freedom, but around Americans who are wrongfully detained.

There are many senior administration officials who have commented — the president, of course, has commented on the case. There is just a lot of activity from the White House and the State Department. What has been very impressive is how people have coalesced around this cause and how so many people are giving it their all.

That said, the outcome is sort of binary: He's either free or he's not. And so if the question is, “Has enough been done?” Well, we'll know that when he walks free.

One of the eye-opening pieces of reporting the Journal published this week was about a complex prisoner swap to secure Evan’s freedom that involved both the Russian and German governments. According to the Journal’s reporting, the exchange involved Alexei Navalny before he died and a Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov, who is in prison in Germany. Can you tell us anything about what happened there? 

In the past year, there have been many forays into the realm of trying to free Evan. And there are different channels for that. First, there is the publicity around Evan that keeps him in the news and that helps with making sure that his release is a priority with the administration.

Then, there's the official diplomacy that takes place that, in my view, would include signals that the president or the White House might send publicly. But also, a lot that happens behind the scenes bilaterally [or] on a multilateral basis.

And then there is what I would call “private diplomacy.” We have retained a law firm that has, among its many specialties, hostage affairs. So [we’re] creating additional channels to find a solution because you never know in cases like these where the eventual solution is going to come from. And so it's important for us at the Wall Street Journal as an institution, but also, I think, for the administration, to have all these paths work simultaneously.

If that sounds complicated, it is because it is. And I think some of the reporting that you've read that I can't comment on blow-by-blow reflects, at a minimum, that these cases and potential solutions often happen in very muddled terrain and in very blurry circumstances, where there just are a lot of variables.

Obviously, you're not going to say anything that would jeopardize Evan in any way. But do you feel like the German government has been a good partner in this effort? Do you feel like the German government has understood how important this case is to the Biden administration? Or would you like them to do more? 

We want everybody to do more until he's out. Until he's out, not enough has been done by anyone, and that goes for all of us. But we're confident that at some point, he will be released.

I think on the specific Germany question, on this private diplomacy path, we have met a lot of people from a lot of different countries. We have traveled with Evan's parents to different spots, including very publicly to Davos recently where they had a chance to meet with world leaders. And so, without commenting specifically on the Germans, we've had a chance for the parents to meet with world leaders, or for our lawyers to meet with world leaders, in addition to whatever the U.S. administration does on that front. And I think wherever and whenever we've done that, when faced with the parents, I've seen some senior figures on the world stage realize how much pain this causes for one family.

In addition, I think there is a realization that this case reverberates beyond one individual; that the wrongful incarceration of a journalist has wider implications, very negative implications for press freedom. So I do think that we've seen that awareness take hold with world leaders, in Western Europe, and around the world, and certainly also in the U.S.

I wanted to ask you about one of the stranger parts of this effort, and that is Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin, where he asked about releasing Evan. What did you and the Journal learn from that exchange? Did Tucker reach out to the Journal at all, or did he just raise Evan’s case to Putin on his own initiative?

I can't speak to whom Tucker may have reached out to or not. There was, I think, a public awareness and certainly an awareness in this building that he was going to have that interview. And I think, at least I was under the impression, that the topic might come up. At least to me, there wasn't a direct request or any notification of that sort, nor were we seeking that per se. We were more focused on Putin's response.

What did you make of it? 

It reinforced the notion that this was something very deliberate and that there was some forethought; that there was no surprise to this question and the answer didn't seem so spontaneous.

He was weirdly honest about it, sort of like there was no B.S. about what was really going on with Evan. Or am I reading that incorrectly? 

“Honest” is not a word that I would use in a sentence containing “Vladimir Putin.” I think you could see, at that moment, the transactional nature. So, it was a naked portrayal of the motivation, in my view.

Did it spin things forward? Not that I can tell.

So in a weird way, did it give you a little bit more optimism like, “Okay, this guy's just looking for a deal, and we've got to find the deal that will satisfy him.” 

Hostage-taking, you know, works like this to begin with.

You knew that already.

This is the whole game, right? We take somebody and we want a ransom or a trade or something in return.

So by this point, nobody on the Russian side is pretending that that's not what this is about? 

I can't speak to specifically what the Russians have said or not said, but what I can say is that I would dismiss any sort of portrayal that this is anything other than seeking a trade. It comes on the back of another trade that has been made involving Brittney Griner. There's very little that is truthful that comes out of the Kremlin these days. So even quasi-frank comments have to be seen in that transactional light.

Where were you when you learned that Evan had been arrested? 

I was in South Africa. There was a period that preceded that moment where I got a phone call from my head of HR and head of security saying that, “We may have some difficult news and there might be a very difficult situation. A reporter in Russia did not show up at their appointed time.”

And that was really a moment because we have, like many major news organizations, a very strict security protocol where if you go out on something sensitive or you find yourself in a danger zone, there's a significant amount of planning that happens. And there are appointed times when you check in; and depending on the situation, there might be some tracking. But when somebody doesn't show up — which was the very first moment of this saga for me — that was alarming.

And initially, I suppose you didn't know why Evan had missed his check-in?

No. And you hope for the best, of course. But a little bit later, it became clear that a second checkpoint had been missed. And Evan did not show up at his apartment — this is some hours later — and so it went from a suspicion that something had gone wrong to an ever-stronger suspicion that something had gone wrong.

And there were also, at that point, some rumors that had reached me indirectly that he might have been arrested. Some hours later, there was a confirmation of some sort that that had happened. And then for me, the next morning, very early morning on the East Coast, the FSB put out a statement.

The FSB statement was the first official word, right?

That was the first official word with context as to what this was and that contained this espionage lie immediately. And when you hear in a hostage situation that somebody has been taken, maybe at first your instinct is, “Let's address this in the quiet. Let's have the conversations that we need to have with the authorities in this case, maybe with an embassy or with the right team.”

But this got tossed out into the open right away. There was never really a chance to have that conversation, which is very different than some other cases. But here I think it shows the deliberate nature of what has happened. It got very deliberately pushed out into the world with a very clear message from the Russian Federation.

Let me ask you about two quick things. One, were there signs of the deteriorating situation for journalists in Russia? Was Evan picking up on that? Was your newsroom?

And second, the story that the Journal published this past Wednesday was an amazing piece of journalism, and I assume you're very intimately aware of all the details. One thing it says is that Putin was looking for a new pawn at this point in time. And I'm just curious if that was something that was on anyone's radar back then or if it’s just something we all realized in hindsight. 

When you read that somebody has been falsely accused of something, you understand that there is some motivation to drive that, whether that is defaming the Western press or something else altogether.

But I think, at that moment a year ago, we were institutionally aware that the circumstances in Russia — and also in some other places around the world — were just more difficult for reporters. And when people are sent out into the field, it's with their consent, with an elaborate discussion with security. And so we had been monitoring it. Did we know that there was a methodical approach to hostage-taking [by the Russian government] as it looks today? It's easy to say with hindsight. But the situation did not seem accidental.

The other wrongfully detained American in the Russian system is Paul Whelan. How much do the people like yourself, who are advocating on Evan's behalf, coordinate with your counterparts who are advocating on Paul Whelan's behalf? 

You know, first off, my heart goes out to Paul and Paul's family and they've been at this for way too long — five years. We want him to be released and we think it's incredibly important. Our task here is to focus on our colleague. The government is focusing on a broader set of hostage situations. I do think that with the spotlight that we've deliberately put on Evan, there's been, over the past year, a greater awareness of the hostage situations that exist in Russia and even elsewhere. And so in that sense, the Evan situation, when we talk about it implicitly, of course, pertains to Paul as well as to Alsu [Kurmasheva], who recently got apprehended there for what seems like bogus reasons.

Sadly, the court recently extended Evan’s imprisonment by three more months. What's your reading of how the 2024 presidential campaign and political situation in the United States may or may not play into these efforts to get Evan back?

We have had bipartisan support for Evan's release, and that has been very consistent throughout.

I think the extension that was made clear this week — through June 30th — has the air of sounding official, but all these things are really arbitrary and in parallel with the official legal system, could be decided separately if the Kremlin wanted to speed things up or slow things down.

So I mainly look at these extensions as the language of the Kremlin and whether they have what they want or not. So this means that at least for the next few months, theoretically, they don't yet have what they want.

What did you learn from previous efforts to get wrongfully detained Americans out of Russia? For example, Brittney Griner, who was swapped for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout? 

So, a very different situation… But two decades ago, we did have a situation that did not end well when [Wall Street Journal correspondent] Daniel Pearl was taken hostage [in Pakistan]. And so there is an acute awareness institutionally here that you have to take these situations incredibly seriously. I think that was one lesson: that there's no guarantee for the outcome necessarily, so you have to give it your all.

And I think that led to a very speedy organization around this where we set up various teams, a comms team, a legal team in the U.S., a legal team in Russia and a lot of other different channels.

On the Griner case, one conclusion was that putting a spotlight on a situation like this helps. It helps with the prioritization. I think that has been a dominant theme for the past year: to make sure that having that voice, having that spotlight, helps this case. And then I think the transactional nature of the Griner case — having a major arms dealer traded against a basketball player of renown — that shows the crass nature of a situation like this.

So I think those lessons and a few other things quite quickly found their way into our bloodstream as we tried to get organized around this.

I think having the realization that you need to stay in close contact with the family, with the government, and bring to bear anyone you know who might influence the situation — so bring in all your resources — those are all lessons, at least in hindsight, that I think we picked up or we found out along the way.

I want to ask you one last question, and that is to explain to listeners who haven't been following this case, one, why should they care about this? And two, what can people do if they care about Evan and want to help? 

This case is important because it pertains to one man's freedom, and that matters. Evan is a journalist and he was just doing his job. He was arrested for doing his job. And when that can happen and nobody says anything about it, that has a tremendous negative impact on society, on free press.

His arrest, in my view, was a direct attempt to suppress press freedom, to send a signal that you are not safe as a journalist in Russia. If we let that go by unnoticed, if we don't say anything about it, if we don't fight for Evan’s release, that signals to Russia that this is okay behavior. That makes any chance for reliable information to get to Russia even more difficult.

But I believe it can also be contagious. And that this may give other dictators, strongmen, the idea that, “Hey, there's another way to deal with press that you don't like,” and that is just by arresting them or by taking harsher measures.

And so what can you do about this? At first, I think, have this awareness and follow the case. I think it does matter to talk about it to your friends, to talk about press freedom to people you know, to talk to your elected officials about it.

I often get this question like, does it really matter? But if you wear that [Free Evan] pin, every little bit helps to support that thesis that free press is a good thing and that society needs that more than ever. And so, in fighting for Evan's release, I think we can all make a statement for him, but also for society at large.

Listen to this episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.