WSJ publisher on Gershkovich’s request to interview Putin: He ‘hasn’t lost his spirit as a journalist’

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) publisher Almar Latour said reporter Evan Gershkovich’s request to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin showed he “hasn’t lost his spirit” after being detained in the country for more than a year.

Before being released from Russia in a massive prisoner exchange last week, Gershkovich requested an interview with Putin on his form to officially ask for presidential clemency. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos told Latour he was “struck” by that request and pressed Latour on whether a formal interview request had been submitted.

“Well, I’ll leave that to our newsroom to share that and to make those decisions, but what it showed is that Evan hasn’t lost his spirit as a journalist. He’s a journalist with a hunger for stories. He’s a storyteller. He’s got a lot of energy, and boy, wouldn’t that be an amazing thing to see,” Latour responded.

Stephanopoulos then asked whether Gershkovich would need to travel to Moscow for an interview like that.

“Well, you would have to decide on what location you could do that, and you could pick a neutral country, but I don’t want to speculate, and I think that’s a news decision. I want to respect that,” Latour replied.

President Biden announced last week that Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza were the Americans released in a global prisoner swap. Five Germans and seven Russian citizens were also freed as part of the deal.

Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg in March 2023 and was accused of espionage — an allegation that the United States and The Wall Street Journal repeatedly denied. He became the first American journalist to be detained in Russia since the Cold War and was sentenced in July to 16 years in prison.