Evan Gershkovich requested one-on-one interview with Putin before historic release deal

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich requested an interview with Russian President Vladimir in one last show of bravery and defiance against the Kremlin before he was finally freed as part of a hectic, top-secret deal to release three Americans imprisoned in Russia.

Gershkovich, 32 – who was released on Thursday after he was arrested and accused of being an American spy last year – had received a form to request presidential clemency from Putin in the days leading up to his release, the WSJ reported.

As he filled out the form, the journalist used the final line to cheekily ask the Moscow leader, who typically shies away from Western media, if he would be willing to sit down for an interview with the reporter.

The tongue-in-cheek request allowed Gershkovich to get the last laugh on the Kremlin as he flew home to the US as part of the largest multi-country prisoner swap since the Cold War, which saw 24 prisoners freed, including former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.

Whelan, 54, was visiting Russia for a friend’s wedding when he was arrested for espionage in 2018. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.

Members of Whelan’s family told the BBC that he had traveled to Russia multiple times in the past, and boasted about being close with a Federal Security Service (FSS) agent. The FSS is the main successor agency to the Soviet Union’s KGB.

He claimed to have visited the man’s house the winter before his arrest, where he said he loaned him over $1,140 for the upcoming wedding.

The FSS insisted that the payment was actually for intelligence – an allegation that Whelan repeatedly denied.

The historic deal first came together in February in talks between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with the deal initially set to feature top Putin critic Alexei Navalny.

Navalny’s death just a few days later threw a wrench in the plans, with the world leaders regrouping and forced to keep the deal so top-secret that insiders resorted to keeping the talks analog and hand delivering drafts on paper to US and German officials, according to the WSJ.

Here’s the latest on former Russian prisoner Evan Gershkovich

The deal was so fragile that one leak would’ve been enough to blow the whole thing up, the outlet noted.

The talks were so critical that even a quarantined Biden, who was recovering from a bout of COVID-19 and preparing to drop out of the 2024 elections, handled a call directly with the prime minister of Slovenia on July 21 to discuss the nation’s contribution of two convicted Russian spies for the deal to work.

One Slovenian official told the WSJ that he was “sh–ing bricks” over the stressful call, as Biden pushed Prime Minister Robert Golob to act quickly with time running out.

The call allowed the nations to secure the pardons necessary for the exchange deal to proceed — and Biden formally ended his re-election bid just an hour later.

Things were still not even finalized in the final days before the exchange, with CIA director William Burns flying to the Turkish capital to discuss the logistics of the deal with the country’s spy chief.

Even Gershkovich’s own mother, Ella, was asked to keep mum about the deal when she first suspected her son would be freed — after the Kremlin decided to speed up his sham trial and sentenced him to 16 years in prison in July.

She was also instructed to “tell no one” about her meeting at the White House Thursday morning to celebrate her son’s release with the other families of freed prisoners.

As the reporter comes home following 491 days in detention — after Kremlin agents arrested him at the Bukowski Grill steakhouse in Yekaterinburg — he was allowed to bring the letters he received from family and colleagues, as well as a book he began writing in prison.

Gershkovich had told his family he was determined to leave prison a better writer as he read up on Russian classics like Vasily Grossman’s “Life and Fate” and Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”

His mother, however, had worried that too many tomes focused on Russia’s tragic past might not be good for him and urged him to read lighter novels while in prison.

It was also revealed that Gershkovich was subjected to a 23-hour solitary confinement regime while inside a 9-foot-by-12 foot cell at Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison, which is home to serial killers and political prisoners.

In the little time he was not in his cell reading books and letters sent to him by loved ones and supporters, Gershkovich was forced to face chief investigator Alexei Khizhnyak, the same man who threatened to kill Whelan, according to the WSJ.

Fortunately for Gershkovich, he discovered that Khizhnyak was a fan of English Premier League club Liverpool, a rival to his own beloved club Arsenal. He also used his newfound knowledge on Russia’s literary classics to chat with the investigator.

Gershkovich and the other freed prisoners were ultimately transferred to US custody in Ankara, Turkey. 

“We are grateful to share the sublime news that our colleague Evan Gershkovich has finally been released after almost 500 days in a Russian prison,” wrote Robert Thomson, the CEO of Wall Street Journal owner NewsCorp, in a message to colleagues.

Also released was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military. Her employer and family have denied the accusations.

The dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of Navalny.

Other freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, a dissident imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

In exchange for Gershkovich and the 15 other prisoners, the West agreed to free eight Russian convicts, including Vadim Krasikov, a former high-ranking Federal Security Service (FSS) colonel and professional hitman — who was on the top of Moscow’s list and a linchpin to the exchange.

The convicted Russian killer was serving a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen living in Berlin who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya.

The brutal, broad-daylight killing was a political murder ordered by the Russian government, German prosecutors said.