The Guardian view on Evan Gershkovich’s year behind bars: Moscow should free him now | Editorial

The Wall Street Journal correspondent is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately from his Russian jail

Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, has spent nearly a year in a Moscow prison, awaiting trial for a crime he did not commit. Mr Gershkovich was arrested last March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and jailed on espionage charges. He is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately. Hostage diplomacy lies behind his incarceration. As the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, said, Mr Gershkovich's case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends".

Vladimir Putin indicated in February that a prisoner exchange could lead to the release of Mr Gershkovich. There have been high-profile prisoner swaps in the past. In December 2022, Moscow traded a US basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for a Russian arms trafficker. But a journalist's detention to secure the release of a Russian hitman would underscore Russia's retreat into a Soviet past. In 1986 an American journalist, Nicholas Daniloff, was arrested and charged with espionage. He was let go after two weeks when the US released a Soviet diplomat accused of spying. MrGershkovich has been inside for nearly 12 months.