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Evan Gershkovich, U.S. Journalist Imprisoned in Russia, Will Publish a Memoir

The memoir, which will cover his time in prison and Russia’s move toward autocracy, will be published by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was imprisoned in Russia for more than a year, is writing a memoir about his time in prison, his five years living in Moscow and Russia’s slide toward autocracy.

The memoir will be published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, with a tentative publication date in 2026.

Paul Whitlatch, the editorial director for Crown, called the book “a testament to human resilience and a work of first-person reportage with few precedents in modern times.”

His statement continued, “During those sixteen months in Russian prisons, he never stopped being a reporter, even as he faced a reality few of us can imagine.”

Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip, becoming the first American journalist arrested in Russia on a spying charge since the end of the Cold War. His detention marked an escalation in President Vladimir V. Putin’s crackdown on independent media in Russia.

The Russian authorities accused Mr. Gershkovich, who had reported on Russia for The Journal since 2022, of being a spy for the U.S. government. The charges were vehemently denied by the White House, Mr. Gershkovich and The Journal, which said he was an accredited journalist doing his job. The U.S. government designated him as “wrongfully detained.”

Mr. Gershkovich was held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison, where he spent 23 hours a day inside a small cell and communicated with his family and friends through letters.

After a closed-door trial on the fabricated espionage charges, Mr. Gershkovich was sentenced in July to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.

He was freed on Aug. 1 as part of a sweeping prisoner swap that involved seven countries and led to the release of 15 people imprisoned in Russia.

Mr. Gershkovich is the son of Soviet émigrés, Mikhail Gershkovich and Ella Milman, who both left the country in 1979 for the United States. They raised their children in New Jersey, speaking Russian at home and instilling in them an appreciation for their Russian heritage.

Mr. Gershkovich, who previously worked for The New York Times as a news assistant, moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times, later joining The Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent.

In addition to Crown, the memoir has been sold to the publishing house William Collins in Britain, and to Meulenhoff, a publisher in the Netherlands, according to Mr. Gershkovich’s agent, Adam Eaglin.

“Evan is an extraordinary journalist and writer,” Mr. Eaglin said. “He will offer a powerful new perspective on Russia and its relationship to the West in the 21st century.”

Ukraine War: Russia launches more missiles over Kyiv as Moscow moves troops to Bakhmut

Euronews correspondent Sasha Vakulina reports with all the latest updates from the war in Ukraine

Russia launched its largest attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv over the weekend and then again on Monday morning.

On the 28th of May Russian forces conducted the biggest Shahed drone strike against Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion with 59 Shahed drones.

Ukrainian air defences managed to shoot down more than 40 “air targets,” including drones and missiles, that were moving toward Kyiv.

The UK defence ministry said:

In recent weeks, elements of the 31st Brigade of Russia’s Airborne Forces have likely moved from the Svatove-Kreminna area to reinforce Bakhmut’s flanks.

The transfer of these other Russian units to Bakhmut may further slow Russian efforts in other areas.

Watch Sasha Vakulina’s report in the video player below.

EU to issue ‘warning’ to countries supporting Russia in next sanction package, VDL says

The next round of EU sanctions against Russia aims to close loopholes and crack down on circumvention and could target companies and countries that help Russia acquire sanctioned goods.

An intense diplomatic week is starting for the EU on Tuesday with the bloc determined to put support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia at the centre of discussions.

The first summit of the week will be in Reykjavik, Iceland where the leaders of 46 members of the Council of Europe will convene. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the heads of the European Commission and Council will then head to Hiroshima, Japan, for a G7 leaders’ summit. The latter two will then hop over to Seoul for an EU-South Korea summit.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, told reporters on Monday that the main underlying message the EU will be keen to push is the bloc’s united determination to support Ukraine for as long as it takes as it fights Russia’s invasion and to ensure Moscow is held accountable for the war and the atrocities committed.

At the G7 summit, where the US, UK, Canada and Japan, also sit at the table, the EU wants members to take stock of the packages of sanctions already rolled out against Russia as well as those in the making.

EU countries are currently negotiating an 11th round of sanctions aimed at closing loopholes and tackling circumvention. The new measures will allow the bloc to target companies and countries that are believed to help Russia evade the penalties.

One of the worries is that some third countries have been importing sanctioned EU goods and then exporting them to Russia, thus allowing Moscow to acquire dual-use technology that can be used by the military despite the bloc’s export ban.

Von der Leyen said of the planned measure that “it’s basically a warning that we are serious about our sanction that we could ban these goods from going to that third country if there is clear evidence that this is a circumvention of sanctions and deliverable deliveries to Russia.”

She also said the proposed raft of sanctions could extend the list of EU products banned from transiting via Russia.

“We see that there is a discrepancy between what starts in the European Union, transits Russia and then ends up in the third country. And therefore, we are discussing as a deterrent the question of whether there should be such a transit ban. There are several watch points within the mechanism to make sure that it is justified,” she added.

But the EU knows it also needs to focus on outreach, Michel said, in particular with developing countries to not only strengthen ties but also explain the sanctions against Russia.

This will be primarily addressed at the G7 summit where eight other nations — Australia, Brazil, Comoros, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Cook Islands, and Vietnam — have also been invited.

Some countries in the Global South have repeated the Russian narrative that the West is endangering global food security despite the fact Russian agrifood products have not been sanctioned and can therefore be exported worldwide and transit through the EU.

“We will discuss openly and frankly about why we are convinced these sanctions are necessary and justified. Russian propaganda is built on lies and conspiracy. We are fighting back with the facts and figures,” Michel told reporters.

“Developing and emerging countries have expressed concerns that the G7 is focusing too much on Ukraine and not paying enough attention to their needs and priorities. And we have heard their concerns. We want to build strong partnerships with developing and emerging countries in ways that are mutually beneficial.

China will be the other main topic as the EU and other Western allies seek to “de-risk” by reducing economic dependencies on Beijing. The EU wants for instance to toughen its arsenal to ensure key infrastructure and technologies remain under European control with the deployment of an outbound investment screening or advanced export controls.

Finally, the green transition and the need to accelerate the rollout of clean tech should also be on the agenda of the various summits.