The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich “never stopped reporting” during his grueling captivity in Russia. On Thursday, his name surfaced where he always preferred: as the author of a story, not as its subject.
Gershkovich wrote a first-person account about identifying the man behind the Kremlin spy operation that engineered his ordeal and was there when he was released.
“When I was arrested by Russian security forces in 2023 — the first foreign correspondent accused of espionage since the Cold War — I never stopped reporting,” Gershkovich wrote in a story that also included several other Journal reporters. “After my release, I set out to find the man who took me, and to find out more about the spy unit that had done his bidding.”
Working with other Wall Street Journal reporters who asked similar questions during the nearly 500 days he was imprisoned, Gershkovich reported that the “man behind the curtain” was Lt. Gen. Dmitry Minaev, who heads Russia’s Department of Counterintelligence Operations. known as DKRO.
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Evan Gershkovich, who was released from detention in Russia, is greeted by US Vice President Kamala Harris as he steps off a plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, on August 1, 2024. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
“It is at the heart of Putin’s opaque war regime. The story of how it got there reveals much about how Russia’s autocratic system became entangled in a brewing conflict with the West,” Gershkovich wrote.
Gershkovich said the DKRO accused him of being an agent of the CIA, a claim for which there was no evidence. was called absurd at first glance by the United States, but it was enough for Russia to detain him indefinitely. Little did the American-born journalist, whose parents are Russian immigrants, know that he would immediately become one of the most famous people in the world.
He was arrested in March 2023 while reporting in Yekaterinburg, the country’s fourth-largest city. He was eventually taken to the infamous Moscow prison Lefortovothe site of many executions during the Great Purge under dictator Joseph Stalin and still a place designed to psychologically isolate dissidents and suspects.
“It was in Lefortovo that I began to understand the power of the shadowy force that had taken away my freedom,” Gershkovich wrote.
The Journal’s reporting revealed that the secretive DKRO is key to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime and behind actions such as the arrests of Gershkovich, ex-Marine Paul Whelan and WNBA player Brittney Griner to create leverage for the recovery of figures such as convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov and infamous weapons dealer Viktor Bout.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. He was released in a prisoner exchange in August. (AP)
Minaev was present on August 1 when Gershkovich, Whelan and a host of others were released in a large-scale, complex prisoner exchange involving the United States, Russia and Germany.
The fate of Gershkovichwho turned 33 in October, received significantly media attention during his captivity, and President Biden even mentioned him during his State of the Union address earlier this year.
He was convicted in a closed court in July on espionage charges sentenced to 16 years in prison, an expected outcome, before being released weeks later. Now, less than five months later, he’s reporting again, and journalists online were delighted to see their colleague’s name printed where it belonged.
DKRO officials are heavily compensated and considered the Kremlin’s “most elite security force,” Gershkovich reported. Two of his fellow reporters were stalked while working in Vienna and Washington as an intimidation tactic, he revealed.
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Domestically, the DKRO has arrested hundreds of Russians on charges of espionage, collaboration and treason to appease opponents of the Putin regime. The Wall Street Journal report also said that DKRO was behind a purge of the nation’s Defense Department as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine faltered and officials were arrested for corruption, and intelligence officials warn that the country is planning malign acts abroad to to facilitate war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to the Moscow-appointed head of Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, November 18, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
But the focus under Putin is mainly internal, the report said, because of the autocrat’s fixation on spies within Russia.
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“A former Russian intelligence officer described an extraordinary twist: The president at one point created a counterintelligence committee to seek collaborators among the ranks of counterintelligence agencies seeking collaborators among ordinary Russians,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
