President Joe Biden says the U.S. is working every day to secure the release of a Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia
On the one-year anniversary of the Russian detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, President Joe Biden said the U.S. is working every day to secure his release.
“Journalism is not a crime, and Evan went to Russia to do his job as a reporter — risking his safety to shine the light of truth on Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
Biden told reporters later Friday that he held Gershkovich in high regard.
“I admire the hell out of him,” Biden said before he traveled from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to the Camp David presidential retreat. “We’re not giving up.”
Gershkovich was arrested while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, alleges he was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets but provided no evidence to support the accusation, which he, the Journal and the U.
