FIRST COMMENTS

Evan Gershkovich Shares ‘One Thing I’d Like to Say’ After His Release

The Wall Street Journal reporter spoke to the media shortly after returning to American soil after 491 days in custody in Russia.

American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich immediately called attention to the plight of political prisoners in Russia after his own freedom was secured in a prisoner swap deal. The 32-year-old spoke to the media after being greeted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris following his arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday. “There’s one thing I would like to say. It was great to get on that bus today and see a lot of—not just Americans and Germans—but Russian political prisoners,” Gershkovich said, referring to other people who were freed as part of the wide-ranging swap deal. He added that he’d “just spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg,” where “everybody I sat with is a political prisoner.” “Nobody knows them publicly,” Gershkovich said. “They have various political beliefs—they’re not all connected with [Alexei] Navalny’s supporters, which I think, you know, everybody knows about them.” Gershkovich said he would like to see if something could potentially be done to help the more obscure political prisoners who were left behind in the prison he’d just left. “I’d like to talk to people about that in the next weeks and months,” he added.