The courtroom footage of a Russian judge announcing a 16-year prison sentence for Evan Gershkovich – mumbling his way through the verdict as the US journalist looked on impassively from inside a transparent defendant’s box – will be a chilling watch for the family, friends and colleagues of the 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent.
But counterintuitively, the manner of the conviction and sentencing may be encouraging for Gershkovich’s supporters. In Russia’s fixed and politicised legal system, the result of the trial was never in doubt. But Russian court cases often drag on interminably, with scattered hearings every couple of months. This one moved at lightning pace: after an initial hearing in June, the next court date was unexpectedly moved forward to this week. Evidence was heard in a few hours on Thursday afternoon, and the verdict and sentencing came on Friday.
On one level, it was a further sign of the legal absurdity of the proceedings, which have concluded without Russia providing even a hint of evidence that Gershkovich was involved in anything other than journalistic work. But it also suggests that a long-discussed exchange could be in the offing, with Russia widely seen to want to wrap up legal proceedings before moving on to an exchange.
Discussions over how an exchange could look have been going on in private for months, but are complicated by the fact that President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his top target, the assassin Vadim Krasikov, is not in US custody but is held by Germany. Krasikov was jailed after he killed a Chechen exile in a Berlin park in 2019.
There are other Russians wanted by the Kremlin, including a number of deep-cover spies, known as “illegals” who have been unmasked in various countries and may form part of an exchange.
There are more Americans in jail in Russia, too. Paul Whelan, a former US marine, has been in a Russian jail since 2020 after being convicted on espionage charges he and his family have said are false. Last October, Russia arrested the journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian national, on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent. She is in jail awaiting trial.
There is a long history of prisoner swaps between Moscow and the west, dating back to the cold war. The largest swap since then took place in 2010, after 10 illegals were rounded up in the US. In an exchange at Vienna airport, they were swapped for four Russians accused of spying for the west, including the former military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, who was later attacked with a nerve agent after being resettled in Britain.
The most recent swap came in December 2022, when Russia freed the US basketball star Brittney Griner, arrested on drugs possession charges, in exchange for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had spent 12 years in a US prison.
The apparent asymmetry of that swap led to accusations that Russia was taking US citizens hostage with a view to exchanging them for high-value Russians held in the west. The US state department advises its citizens against all travel to Russia for this reason.
