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Russia doesn’t care Gershkovich is innocent. Putin needs him as a pawn

Russia doesn’t care Gershkovich is innocent. Putin needs him as a pawn

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Vaseline

Journalists in Russia and elsewhere in the world are threatened, beaten and sometimes even killed, simply for telling us the truth.

Lee Michael Katz
| Opinion Contributor

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As Washington finds itself embroiled in political drama, we must not forget that 5,000 miles away, a blatant injustice has taken place. There, an American reporter was given a lengthy Russian prison sentence on Friday, simply for doing his job.

After a brief show trial on trumped-up espionage charges, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in Russia’s brutal penal system. Yet he was arrested last year not at a secret dead drop, but at a steakhouse after a reporting trip far from Moscow.

Even more chilling than Gershkovich’s unjust punishment is the warning message it sends to journalists and journalism everywhere. In the age of instant social media posts, it’s easy to see news as an easy process, without realizing the pain and blood that can go into gathering real news.

Journalists in Russia and elsewhere in the world are threatened, beaten and sometimes even killed, simply for telling us the truth.

Reporters and photographers are on the front lines of the information war. Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, points out that Gershkovich’s “disgraceful” sentence “sets a dangerous precedent for journalists working abroad.”

Putin uses jailed American journalist as pawn

Gershkovich’s shaved head evokes political prisoners and the Soviet gulag, an era that helped shape Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cynical ideology. Putin wants to return Russia to the supposed glory days of Soviet power. Stuck in the war in Ukraine, Putin knows it’s easier to extract concessions from the West by grabbing an innocent American journalist like Gershkovich.

Russia provides no real evidence of its alleged “espionage.” But it is a common practice for anti-American regimes to make vague, often nonsensical allegations about CIA involvement to distract from their domestic problems.

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It’s straight out of the dictator’s playbook. In fact, a USA TODAY report noted that Gershkovich was “the first American journalist arrested in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War.” Now as then, the accredited correspondent is effectively a hostage, not a criminal.

Gershkovich’s imprisonment is the old Soviet-style version of today’s internet clickbait. It’s designed to get the attention of the US. But a life hangs in the balance. Putin undoubtedly knows – and doesn’t care – about Gershkovich’s innocence. The American is simply bait for the Russian autocrat to get something or someone out of the West.

Contrary to Gershkovich’s case, there is ample evidence that he is merely a pawn in Putin’s evil geopolitical chess game. These factors include:

  • Russia was open to a deal long before Gershkovich’s predetermined verdict came down. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov admitted that prisoner swap talks were underway before Friday’s verdict.
  • Putin’s regime is on a shopping spree for human bargaining chips. Several other Americans have been arrested on apparently trumped-up charges. Among them is a dual citizen who works as a journalist for the U.S. government’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
  • The rushed Gershkovich proceedings could signal that Putin is serious about reaching a deal. Russia traditionally prefers formal “convictions” before any releases. Another potentially positive sign is that any deal could include other Americans. President Joe Biden has declared “no higher priority” than freeing Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan “and all Americans wrongfully held hostage abroad.”
  • Putin can exact a high price in the trade. To free WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was jailed for possession of cannabis oil, America extradited Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the infamous “Merchant of Death.”
  • These unseemly negotiations may also be the reason Putin insists on the talks remaining private. He is seeking a complex release deal that would free a Russian jailed in Germany for killing a dissident.

Journalists often risk their lives to report the truth

Some of Gershkovich’s newspaper colleagues have shaved their heads to draw attention to his plight. But average Americans can begin to appreciate the dangerous and sometimes deadly work of journalism, here and abroad. Prison, hostage-taking, beatings and executions are ugly parts of the job.

In 2002, Daniel Pearl, another brave Wall Street Journal reporter, was taken hostage in Pakistan. Islamic terrorists filmed his beheading as Pearl revealed his Jewish heritage.

Last month, Gershkovich received in absentia the Daniel Pearl Award “for courage and integrity in journalism.”

USA TODAY endorses Evan Gershkovich. Russia’s arrest of a WSJ reporter raises the stakes.

In 2012, Austin Tice, a Marine turned conflict journalist, was kidnapped in Syria. Just two years ago, Biden said Tice was “certainly” being held by the Syrian government.

Between the Republican and Democratic conventions, there will be many flags, platforms and platitudes. We must also patriotically honor freedom of the press as a cherished American constitutional value.

Media bashing is a national sport, practiced by all political parties. But don’t forget that journalists are real people who can take real risks. They step up, not sit down, to document critical news — from a hitman’s bullets in Pennsylvania to dangerous and dictatorial rule around the world.

There are few things in complex international relations that can be reduced to hashtags. But in this case, it fits the unseemly picture. #FreeEvan. And #BringAustinHome, along with journalists and innocent others. It takes constant pressure to make these hashtags a reality.

Evan Gershkovich’s nearly 500-day captivity has one powerful message: Journalism is not a crime.

Lee Michael Katz is the author of “My Name Is Geraldine Ferraro.” He is the former senior diplomatic correspondent for USA TODAY and international editor for UPI. Katz has reported from more than 60 countries.

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