It’s almost fifteen months since the days of American journalist Evan Gershkovich have passed in the same sterile and anxious monotony. Since he was arrested by Russian authorities in March 2023 for ” spying “ while he was reporting in the Urals for the Wall Street Journalthis 32-year-old reporter spends twenty-three hours a day, locked in his cell in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, killing time by consulting history books, reading and rereading letters from his loved ones, and playing in chess by mail with his father Mikhail.
His trial, which opens this Wednesday June 26 in Yekaterinburg, must determine how much time he will still spend in prison in Russia. But this duration is entirely theoretical. Because, for Moscow, Evan Gershkovich is first and foremost a pawn. A human currency that the Russian authorities hope to exchange for one or more Russian nationals detained in the United States or Europe.
“The ball is in the court of the United States, and we expect them to respond to the ideas that have been presented to them,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on June 19. “I understand if, perhaps, something in these ideas does not sit well with Americans. That’s their problem. We believe our approach is fully justified, sensible and balanced. »
Journalist versus gun holder
Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several American and dual nationals, as well as a Frenchman, have been incarcerated in Russia to pressure their governments and force them into exchanges or concessions. Known since the Soviet Union, this practice has made a comeback thanks to the considerable deterioration of Russian-Western relations following the launch of this large-scale military operation.
In addition to Evan Gershkovich, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has also been detained in Russia since October 2023, on the grounds that she did not register as a “foreign agent” and would have “discredited the Russian army”. “It’s a logic of taking hostages, of bargaining chipscomments Russia specialist Marie Dumoulin. Russia knows that the United States will do everything to free its detained citizens, and that it is holding a number of Russian citizens that Moscow would like to have back. »
Russia thus obtained, in December 2022, the release of Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, detained for ten years in the United States, in exchange for basketball player Brittney Griner, arrested ten months earlier. In the case of Evan Gershkovich, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that he wanted to see him exchanged for Vadim Krassikov, a gunslinger sentenced to life in prison in Germany for having assassinated a Chechen separatist leader there in 2019 for account of Russian services.
Reopen dialogue with Washington
Is this the reason why the Russian authorities detained French researcher Laurent Vinatier on June 6, on the grounds that he had not registered as “foreign agent” ? According to Marie Dumoulin, this arrest could be linked to the placement in police custody, three days earlier in France, of a Russian-Ukrainian suspected of planning violent action. A hypothesis that is difficult to verify. However, it fits more generally into a context of deterioration in Franco-Russian relations, marked by Russian disinformation operations and the strengthening of French commitment alongside Ukraine.
In the eyes of some observers, it is not excluded that Moscow sees these arrests as an entry point into broader negotiations with the United States. “The Russians tend quite easily to put very different things on the table during negotiations, to decompartmentalize discussions according to their interests, believes Marie Dumoulin, herself a former diplomat. Ultimately, their objective remains to initiate a dialogue on sharing Europe’s security with the United States. » Not sure that the Americans will follow them in this area.
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Laurent Vinatier, a Frenchman behind bars
Specialist in the post-Soviet world, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the 47-year-old researcher was arrested on Thursday June 6 in a restaurant in Moscow, while he was on a mission for the Swiss NGO Center for Humanitarian Dialogue.
He is accused of not having registered as a “foreign agent” collecting information about the Russian army.
Laurent Vinatier faces a sentence of up to five years in prison. Emmanuel Macron, who denied a mission by the expert on behalf of France, assured that the French “will receive all appropriate consular protection in such a case.”
