The Wall Road Journal’s Evan Gershkovich “never stopped reporting” throughout his grueling imprisonment inside Russia. On Thursday, his identify confirmed up the place he at all times most popular: because the writer of a narrative, not the topic of 1.
Gershkovich penned a first-person account about figuring out the person behind the Kremlin spying operation that led to his ordeal and was there when he was let out.
“When I was arrested by Russia’s security forces in 2023—the first foreign correspondent charged with espionage since the Cold War—I never stopped reporting,” Gershkovich wrote in a narrative that included collaboration from a number of different Journal reporters. “On my release I set out to identify the man who had taken me, and to learn more about the spy unit that had carried out his orders.”
Working with different Wall Road Journal reporters who have been asking comparable questions all through the practically 500 days he was held prisoner, Gershkovich reported that the “man behind the curtain” was Lt. Gen. Dmitry Minaev, who runs Russia’s Division for Counterintelligence Operations, referred to as DKRO.
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Evan Gershkovich, who was launched from detention in Russia, is greeted by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as he disembarks from a aircraft at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., August 1, 2024. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
“It is at the very core of Putin’s opaque wartime regime. The story of how it got there reveals much about how Russia’s autocratic system became entangled in a broiling conflict with the West,” Gershkovich wrote.
Gershkovich mentioned the DKRO accused him of being an agent of the CIA, a declare that lacked any proof and was known as absurd on its face by the US, but it surely was sufficient for Russia to carry him indefinitely. The American-born journalist, whose dad and mom are Russian immigrants, did not know on the time he would instantly develop into one of the well-known folks on the planet.
He was arrested in March of 2023 whereas reporting in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest metropolis within the nation. He was ultimately taken to the infamous Moscow jail Lefortovo, the location of many executions throughout the Nice Purge beneath dictator Joseph Stalin and nonetheless a spot designed to psychologically isolate dissidents and suspects.
“It was at Lefortovo that I came to understand the power of the shadowy force that had taken away my freedom,” Gershkovich wrote.
The Journal’s reporting revealed the secretive DKRO is vital to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime and behind such strikes as arresting Gershkovich, ex-Marine Paul Whelan and WNBA participant Brittney Griner to create leverage for retrieving figures like convicted Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov and infamous arms supplier Viktor Bout.
Wall Road Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. He was freed in August in a prisoner swap. (AP)
Minaev was current on Aug. 1 when Gershkovich, Whelan and a number of others have been freed in an enormous, complicated prisoner swap involving the US, Russia and Germany.
The plight of Gershkovich, who turned 33 in October, obtained vital media consideration all through his imprisonment, and President Biden even talked about him throughout his State of the Union deal with earlier this yr.
He was convicted of his spying fees in a closed courtroom in July and sentenced to 16 years in jail, an anticipated consequence, earlier than being freed weeks later. Now, lower than 5 months later, he is reporting once more, and journalists on-line exulted in seeing their colleague’s identify in print the place it belonged.
DKRO officers are extremely compensated and regarded the Kremlin’s “most elite security force,” Gershkovich reported. Two of his reporter colleagues have been stalked whereas working in Vienna and Washington as intimidation techniques, he revealed.
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At residence, the DKRO has arrested a whole bunch of Russians on spying, collaboration and treason fees to sit back opponents of the Putin regime. The Wall Road Journal report additionally mentioned DKRO was behind a purge of the nation’s protection ministry as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine faltered, arresting officers for corruption, and intelligence officers warn it is planning malign acts overseas to facilitate the battle.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia area of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky throughout their assembly on the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Picture by way of AP)
However its focus beneath Putin is primarily inside, the report mentioned, as a result of autocrat’s fixation on spies inside Russia.
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“One former Russian intelligence officer described an extraordinary twist: The president at one point established a counterintelligence committee to look for collaborators among the ranks of counterintelligence agencies looking for collaborators among ordinary Russians,” the Wall Road Journal reported.
