Sawt Falasteen - Evan Gershkovich: determined US journalist in Russian prison

The US-born son of Soviet emigres had reported from Russia for six years, staying on even after dozens of other Western journalists had left following Moscow's Ukraine offensive.

Russia's critics say his arrest for spying in March 2023 showed the Kremlin was prepared to go further than ever before in what President Vladimir Putin has called a "hybrid war" with the West.

Gershkovich, his employer and the White House have rejected the spying allegations, the first levelled against a Western reporter in Russia since the Soviet era.

Before his trial started last month, he was held for 15 months in Moscow's notorious Lefortovo prison, known for keeping inmates in isolation.

His case is being heard in a closed military court in the Urals region of Sverdlovsk, where the alleged offence took part.

At the opening hearing on June 26, the media was briefly allowed to photograph and film Gershkovich, who smiled at supporters with his head completely shaved.

At what will be just the third hearing of the trial on Friday, the defence and prosecution were expected to give closing arguments.

Russia has provided no public evidence for the charges against Gershkovich, saying only that he spied on a tank factory in the Urals region.

The Wall Street Journal has called the accusation bogus saying he was arrested for "simply doing his job".

He faces 20 years in a prison colony if found guilty.

Moscow and Washington have both said they are open to exchanging the Wall Street Journal reporter in a deal, but neither has given clues on when that might happen.

- 'You love this country' -

Raised in New Jersey, Gershkovich is a fluent Russian speaker and avid cook.

He arrived in Russia in 2017 to work for a small English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, and quickly produced some of the outlet's biggest stories on a shoestring budget.

He then worked for AFP, reporting on forest fires in Siberia, a crackdown on the opposition and Moscow downplaying the effects of the Covid pandemic.

Weeks before the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, he landed his dream job: Moscow correspondent with The Wall Street Journal.

In the role, he reported extensively on how ordinary Russians experienced the Ukraine conflict, speaking to the families of dead soldiers.

Gershkovich's parents fled from repression and anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

His mother, Ella Milman, told AFP this year she was initially happy he made a life for himself in a country that she and his father had fled.

"It was amazing," she said. "I told him I left this country and you love this country -- and what a change."

- 'Still standing strong' -

"We never anticipated this situation happening to our son and brother," the Gershkovich family said in a letter published by The Wall Street Journal this year.

"But despite this long battle, we are still standing strong," they added.

Gershkovich himself, too, appears to have preserved his playful sense of humour that friends describe.

In a first hand-written letter out of jail to his parents, he wrote:

"Mom, you unfortunately, for better or worse, prepared me well for jail food."

The US ambassador to Moscow, Lynne Tracy, has repeatedly said that Gershkovich is in "good spirits" when she has visited him in jail.

If convicted, the reporter would eventually be moved to a penal colony, a type of prison camp.

At Lefortovo, an antiquated prison that housed victims of Joseph Stalin's repression, he shared a small cell with another inmate.

- 'Deeply cared' -

He said he got an hour-long walk in a small prison yard every day, tried to stay fit through exercise, and relied on fruit and vegetables sent by friends to supplement the meagre prison diet.

Gershkovich had been keen to carry on reporting from Russia despite an exodus of Western and Russian independent press when the Kremlin launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Friends say his character -- open, gregarious and extremely sociable -- made Gershkovich's reporting even better.

He "could make any source comfortable, because they always felt he deeply cared about the story", close friend Pjotr Sauer said.

His parents have said they are counting on a "very personal" promise from US President Joe Biden to bring him home.

"For me it's devastating to know how much he's missed, how much time he's lost," his sister Danielle told AFP.

"I miss him more and more every day."

I.Yassin--SF-PST