In conversations with friends, he said he saw his role as telling the story of how the war was changing Russia, and that he knew it could be dangerous to do his work in the face of strict censorship laws passed in the first days of the campaign.
“Evan was not unaware or naive about the risks,” tweeted his friend, New Yorker journalist Joshua Yaffa.
“He is a brave, committed, professional journalist who traveled to Russia to report on stories of import and interest.”
A fluent Russian speaker born to Soviet emigres and raised in New Jersey, Gershkovich moved to Moscow in late 2017 to join the English-language Moscow Times, and subsequently worked for the French national news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Russia announced the start of its “special military operation” in February 2022, just as Gershkovich was in London, about to return to Russia to join the Journal’s Moscow bureau.
It was decided that he would live in London but…
Read More