Gershkovich recounts arrest during reporting trip in Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg, Russia. Gershkovich has described how masked men arrested him during a meeting with a source for a Wall Street Journal story on Russian military production. His account appears in an extract from his book “This Cursed Beautiful Land”, published by the Journal on Friday.

The meeting

Gershkovich had met twice with the union boss of a factory in Yekaterinburg, a major defence-industry hub. At their second meeting, in a steakhouse, the source produced papers containing hand-copied tables of figures that he said related to tank production.

Gershkovich wrote that, as he took notes, he heard marching feet and saw masked men approaching their table. He initially feared he had compromised his source, then tried to hide the papers between the bench and the wall. The men seized him, and someone announced that he was under arrest by Russia’s Federal Security Service.

Risks and aftermath

Gershkovich wrote that he and his editors had discussed the risks before the trip and agreed that the source should not bring documents. If he did, Gershkovich was not to accept them. At the meeting, however, the source “thrust the papers into my hands”, he wrote.

Although Gershkovich had reported on the arrests of other Americans in Russia and on the targeting and murder of Russian journalists, he said there had been an “unspoken rule” that foreign correspondents might be expelled but not arrested.

Gershkovich wrote that he was handcuffed, had a black sack placed over his head and was taken to a van, where he was put in a chokehold and punched in the abdomen while being questioned.

Then 31, Gershkovich became the first US reporter arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. He was later sentenced to 16 years in prison and freed in an East-West prisoner swap in August 2024.