WNBA player Brittney Griner, who spent most of last year in a Russian jail for a drug offense, has spoken out for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested last week in Russia on purported “espionage” charges.
Griner took to her Instagram account on Saturday with her wife, Cherelle, and the pair said that their “hearts are filled with great concern” for the arrested journalist, the New York Post reported.
“Every American who is taken is ours to fight for and every American returned is a win for us all,” they wrote, adding that the Biden administration should use “every tool possible to bring Evan and all wrongfully detained Americans home.”
Joe Biden has already called for the release of the reporter, saying, “Let him go” in a public comment on March 31.
Griner, of course, is famous for having been arrested at a Moscow airport in February last year for having cannabis-infused vape cartridges in her luggage, a serious drug offense in Russia. She was convicted and sentenced to 13 years of hard labor in a Russian prison. She spent ten months incarcerated in Russia before finally being released in exchange for dangerous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death.”
President Joe Biden speaks on the release of Olympian and WNBA player Brittney Griner from Russian custody in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on December 8, 2022, in Washington, DC. Next to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife. (Photo by Oliver Contreras/for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Regarding Gershkovich, Russia’s FSB security service, the successor to the notorious KGB, said it arrested the reporter after a closed-door meeting of the Lefortovo district court in Moscow. Gershkovich’s lawyer was not allowed to attend this meeting, and journalists were barred from the entire floor of the courthouse where it took place. Russian state media claimed these precautions were necessary because a bomb threat was called into the building.
The FSB charged Gershkovich with “collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constitutes a state secret.” He allegedly conducted this vaguely described espionage at the behest of the U.S. government.
“It is not about a suspicion, it is about the fact that he was caught red-handed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov exclaimed.
Gershkovich had been reporting on the Russian public’s feelings about Vladimir Putin’s invasion of nearby Ukraine and was allegedly working on a story about the Wagner Group mercenary organization that has served as one of Putin’s invasion forces.
“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the paper said in a statement the day after the journalist was arrested.
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