In his first article since being freed, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on Friday shared fresh details about the secretive counterintelligence unit that held him in a Moscow prison for 16 months as so-called “trade bait."

What You Need To Know

  • Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich wrote his first article for the paper since being released from a Moscow prison in August

  • Gershkovich was arrested and charged for being a CIA agent in Russia in March 2023

  • The 33-year-old reporter identified the Department for Counterintelligence Operations that targeted him as “the very core of Putin’s opaque wartime regime” 

  • He said the department was tasked with securing the release of Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, who was released in exchange for Gershkovich, Whelan and others

The first foreign correspondent to be charged with espionage since the Cold War, Gershkovich was arrested and charged with being a CIA agent in March 2023. The United States government called the accusations unfounded.

The 33-year-old reporter identified the Department for Counterintelligence Operations that targeted him as “the very core of Putin’s opaque wartime regime.” He said the department has plunged Russia “into its biggest wave of repression since the demise of Joseph Stalin” in 1953, arresting and harassing American citizens on Russian soil, including diplomats and students in a U.S. Embassy high school.

Gershkovich said the department was tasked with securing the release of Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, who was being held in Germany for assassinating one of Putin’s enemies in Berlin. Arresting American citizens, including Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, was intended to secure Krasikov’s release, Gershkovich writes in the piece. 

Gershkovich and Whelan were released on Aug. 1 as part of a prisoner exchange that included Krasikov.