Updated October 5, 2026 at 11:51 AM EDT
Although you may not know his name, you've almost certainly seen images of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a glass cage in a Russian courtroom.
The journalist was arrested by Russian authorities in March 2023 on false charges of espionage.
A year into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had changed the country for journalists, Gershkovich said to Morning Edition. Press freedoms were rolled back and new censorship laws passed. Still, he believed he could work safely as an American, he told NPR's Leila Fadel.
His detainment drew international outcry. Gershkovich said he felt swept into a geopolitical game. He knew that he would be used as a bargaining chip for prisoner swaps, and for this reason, he felt he was treated better than others.
"Viktoria Roschyna," a Ukrainian journalist who got taken captive during the same period as Gershkovich, "ended up being killed in prison and returned in a body bag without her internal organs, so her parents don't know what happened to her" Gershkovich said.
Gershkovich survived his imprisonment by being a journalist — watching, listening and writing down his experiences. His new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian American Story, is largely shaped by the journals he kept in prison.
"You can't change the fact that you're there. And if you can accept that, then you might as well turn your reporter's eye towards what's interesting," Gershkovich said.
Gershkovich noted that, as a reporter, "you're always sort of pulling yourself away from the situation," to protect yourself while reporting on difficult subjects. So finding himself in the center of an international news story was "surreal."
He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but was freed 16 months later as a part of a high-profile prisoner swap that included the marine veteran Paul Wheelan, who spent half a decade in Russian imprisonment.
"In Russia, they're really, really open about the fact that they convict you, and then they swap you," Gershkovich said, but he added that he was nonetheless impacted by the weight of the false conviction. He thought, "I'm a journalist. And they've set up this whole charade. And so there's this sort of, you know, burst of anger, 'I can't believe you guys really went through with this.'"
Gershkovich did not cry during his detainment. In prison, Gershkovich was made to wear flip-flops. When he got up to use the restroom in the night, he went to put on his shoes out of habit, and the sudden weight of his freedom came "crashing down," he said.
The return to normal life is a slow-going process, Gershkovich shared, detailing that his tears first broke in his hotel room, on the second night of his freedom.Panic attacks and sleepless nights followed his release, but also a numbness, he said. He's still relearning "what Monday morning feels like when you're going to work."
Gershkovich remains a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, and the last thing he did before leaving prison was request an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
His request was denied.
"I've always been a reporter. I'm still going to be a reporter. You can't take that away from me," Gershkovich said.
This interview was produced by Julie Depenbrock and edited by Adriana Gallardo. The digital version was edited by Treye Green.
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