Journalist Evan Gershkovich has spent more than three months in Russian custodybut his parents say they remain confident the US government will do all it can to get their son home.
“President (joe) Biden spoke to us and gave us promises to do whatever it takes,” Ella Milman, Gershkovich's mother, told “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos as she sat beside her husband, Mikhail Gershkovich, in their first broadcast interview since their marriage son imprisonment.
Milman said Biden spoke to them “as a parent” about their son, a Moscow-based Wall Street Journal reporter, who was detained on espionage charges — The accusations he, his outlets and the US government vehemently deny.
“(H)He told us he understood our pain,” she said.
Just days after Evan Gershkovich's arrest on March 29, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken officially declared the reporter “unlawfully detained” by Russia.
When Evan's parents met with Blinken, they said he showed them a card with the names of all Americans illegally detained around the world. Gershkovich's name is also on the list.
“And he promised us he would not stop until every name was written off the card,” Milman continued.
“Master Blinken (is) worked really hard to get Evan off the card,” he added.
On Friday – Evan Gershkovich's 100th day in Russian prison – Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, confirmed that US officials had been in contact with their Russian counterparts to discuss Evan's release.
“What the Kremlin said earlier this week is true,” Sullivan said at a White House news briefing on Friday where he addressed a report on talks of a possible prisoner swap. “There have been discussions. But those discussions haven't led to a clear path to resolution, so I can't stand here today and tell you that we have clear answers about how we are going to bring Evan home.”
Evan Gershkovich was at a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, about 1,000 miles from Moscow, when Russia's Federal Security Service arrested him earlier this year.
The WSJ and friends, as well as people Gershkovich interviewed in Yekaterinburg, said the journalist was working on a story about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary military organization, the Wagner Group, which last month led a brief rebellion against the Russian government after leaving the front. Ukraine when he was arrested.
Gershkovich pleaded not guilty to espionage charges. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted in the case marked “top secret.”