When the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg in March 2023, he became the first American journalist in Russia charged with espionage since the end of the cold war.
The Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer, had been talking to his friend Evan that very morning. And, as he explains to Michael Safi, he has spent much of the past 16 months still in contact with Evan – but now in the form of letters sent to a Moscow prison.
Gershkovich’s sham trial ended after only two days in July with a 16-year sentence. But ironically – for Pjotr and Evan’s other friends and family – it was a moment of hope: hope that Evan’s case had been rushed through because he was being readied for a historic prisoner exchange.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com