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The Abduction of Evan Gershkovich

There is something uniquely stomach-turning about the arrest of Gershkovich, a journalist and U.S. citizen of Soviet Jewish extraction—a provocation without precedent since 1986. It’s not just that Russia is “banking hostages,” a common F.S.B. tactic. It’s that Putin is out for revenge.

This morning, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
This morning, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Photo: Alexander Nemenov/AFP
Julia Ioffe
March 30, 2023

This morning, news broke that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. According to local reports, the F.S.B. walked into a cafe where Gershkovich was sitting, arrested him, and led him out with his jacket over his head. He was then transported to Moscow, where, in a closed court proceeding, he was charged with espionage and remanded to the notorious Lefortovo prison for the next two months. The charges carry up to 20 years in a penal colony, which is especially horrifying in this case: Gershkovich is quite young, just 31 years old.