Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said there is “ongoing dialogue” in the effort to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and that Russia wants to “reach an agreement” that will see him freed, according to multiple media reports.
At his revived annual end of the year press conference — Putin skipped the ritual last year as the war in Ukraine floundered — the leader was asked about Biden administration claims made last week that the Russian government rejected a “substantial” proposal for the release of Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine and Michigan corporate-security executive Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018.
“It is not that we have refused to return them,” Putin said, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We want to reach an agreement, and these agreements must be mutually acceptable and must suit both sides. We have contacts with our American partners in this regard, and there is an ongoing dialogue.”
“It is not easy,” he continued. “I will not go into details, but in general it seems to me that we are speaking a language that we both understand. I hope that we will find a solution.”
Putin said that “the American side must hear us and make an appropriate decision—one that suits the Russian side as well,” The Journal reported.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested on March 29 by Russia’s Federal Security Service while he was on a reporting trip in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. He is accused of being a spy. The U.S. government declared him“wrongfully detained” a few weeks later.
His detention while he waits for his Jan. 30 trial has been repeatedly extended, most recently last month, keeping him in in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, The Journal reported.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Gershkovich’s release is a “top priority” for the Biden administration. “We’re not going to rest until we bring him home,” he said.
“Evan has been wrongfully detained for more than 250 days for simply doing his job as a journalist, and any portrayal to the contrary is fiction” the Journal said in a statement. “We will stand with Evan and his family for as long as it takes and continue to demand his immediate release,”