Who is Evan Gershkovich? US journalist released from Russian jail in prisoner swap

Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is set to return to the United States as the months-long negotiation for the US-Russian prisoner swap concludes. He was the first American journalist to get jail time on Russian soil since the Cold War.

On Thursday, August 1, the Biden Administration announced that they have secured Gershkovich's release, along with Russian-Amerian radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Marine veteran Paul Whelan.

The three are expected to arrive on US soil by the end of the day as part of the 24-person prisoner swap involving six countries, marking one of the largest ever since the Cold War ended.

Talking about the history-making trade of foreign detainees, President Biden said in a statement:

"All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over."

In return, eight Russian nationals in prison, three of which were held in US prisons, will also be released.

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Evan Gershkovich was detained in a Russian prison while on assignment in 2023

Evan Gershkovich was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was reporting on an assignment in Yekaterinburg, which is about 1000 miles from Moscow, when he was taken by Russian authorities in March of last year.

He was detained by the Russian Federal Security Service for months and, in July 2024, Gershkovich received a 16-year sentence from a Russian court for espionage.

Gershkovich and his family, including his employer, maintained that he was innocent and the US previously called his trial a "sham." On the news of his release on Thursday, Gershkovich's family was ecstatic that they will soon be reunited with the journalist. They said in a statement:

"We have waited 491 days for Evan's release, and it's hard to describe what today feels like. We can't wait to give him the biggest hug."

Now 32 years old, Gershkovich was a "driven" journalist as he was described by colleagues. His professional stint in reporting started when he took a news assistant job for The New York Times in 2016. A year later, he moved to Moscow to be a reporter for the now independent news outlet, The Moscow Times.

Evan Gershkovich was famously covering the Covid-19 pandemic in Russia before a short stint at the Agence France-Presse. He became part of The Wall Street Journal in 2022, just a month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leaving him and other colleagues to flee the country and find a base in London.

However, they would return to Russia on assignment with a valid Russian visa and accreditation as journalists.

His last assignment was covering the second year of the war in Yekaterinburg in March 2023 before he was captured, with the Russian authorities saying that the journalist was "caught red-handed" with "classified information."