'I was lured into a trap': Evan Gershkovich on moment that led to 16 months in Russian jail

‘I was lured into a trap’: Evan Gershkovich on the moment that led to 16 months in Russian jail

US journalist Evan Gershkovich has said he knew he was being set up by Russia when FSB agents arrested him and accused him of spying.

In his first UK interview, Gershkovich told the BBC about the moment he understood he had been “lured into a trap” after masked men surrounded him at a restaurant in 2023 and detained him.

“I’m not interrogated, I’m not tortured… I’m accused of espionage,” he said, describing a feeling of relief: “They’ve set me up and fabricated this case so that I can be a valuable hostage - a pawn in a greater game”.

Now 34, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but was released 16 months later as part of a high-profile prisoner swap deal.

He had lived in Russia since 2017, and was the Wall Street Journal’s foreign correspondent in Moscow when he was arrested. He is now based in Berlin, Germany. He and his employer have always said the charges were false.

On the day of his arrest, Gershkovich was in Yekaterinburg - about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow - meeting someone he believed was a source for a story.

They were seated in a half-empty dining hall “and a group of about half-dozen masked men marched in and said ‘I think we booked that table’.” Gershkovich said it was an odd line, but on reflection clever because it “freezes you in place”.

The two men got up, and Gershkovich was informed he was under arrest by the notorious and powerful FSB, Russia’s domestic security service.

“It’s at that moment that you realise it’s something really serious… When it’s the FSB, you know it’s been planned.”

What happened to the man he had been meeting? Gershkovich saw him vanish into the crowd.

Soon after his arrest, the journalist said he realised that the fact he was not being interrogated or tortured - common tactics used by Russia’s security service on spies - probably meant he was being treated more like a commodity than a genuine enemy of the state.

“I have this odd moment - a sense of relief flooding over me,” he said. “I realised they’re not treating me like a real spy. They’ve set me up and fabricated this case so that I can be a valuable hostage, a pawn in a greater game. That means it will take a while, but I won’t be here for 12-20 years.”

That understanding helped him remain “stable and disciplined in prison”, and also gave him a distinctive way of anticipating what might come next - including a prisoner swap.

“I assumed that it would be really loud, that it would cause a global uproar. I mean, it’s a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal,” he said - and he was right.

News organisations around the world covered the case, his face appeared on a billboard in Times Square, and then-US President Joe Biden said he had “no higher priority” than bringing Gershkovich home.

The journalist believed all of this was part of Moscow’s plan - to have a high-profile prisoner it could exchange for one of its own - and that prisoner was Vadim Krasikov, an assassin serving a life sentence in Germany.

“They [Moscow] got away with it in the sense that there were no sanctions imposed. And so they played it really smart, if you think about it cynically.”

Gershkovich was held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo jail, which has housed some of the country’s most prominent inmates over the years, including political prisoners and dissidents. During Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s, torture and execution were common.

He called it a “really isolating experience” in a tiny space.

“That wears on you psychologically,” Gershkovich said, though he added that he was treated well: “I was allowed to sleep, the food was fine.”

Images of Gershkovich smiling at cameras during his court hearings in Moscow were shown around the world - and he said that was intentional, a way of signalling that he was okay.

“I wanted to show people this kind of defiance... We know that this is a fabricated case, and so if this is a game of theatre, let’s not let [Moscow] have it play out the way they want it to.”

But he emphasised that not everyone’s experience in a Russian prison is like his: “Some people... get tortured. They get broken as human beings, deprived of food, of hot water for showers, told that they’re never going to see their families again. I was treated completely differently.”

Gershkovich compared his ordeal with the case of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died while in Russian captivity in 2024, aged 27. Months later, when her body was finally returned, it reportedly showed signs of torture and her organs had been removed.

Gershkovich knew a prisoner swap was planned three weeks before it happened - an “excruciating” period, he said, “because now every day is painfully long”.

When it finally took place on 1 August 2024, it was a moment of “pure joy”. But then “the joy fades, the adrenaline subsides, and you’re faced with the reality of having to return to normal life again.”

Gershkovich said that period was difficult and at times overwhelming. He was not sleeping, had panic attacks in large crowds and became short-tempered because he was trying to suppress his emotions.

He has seen therapists who specialise in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and said writing a book about what happened also helped.

As for returning to Russia, Gershkovich has a deep connection to the country - his parents moved to the US from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. He grew up in a Russian-speaking home, with a Russian name, moved there when he was 25 and made many friends, including his Russian girlfriend.

“I would hope to get back one day, but I guess we’ll have to see what comes after [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. And it’s not completely clear that the next government will be any better.”