How the Gershkovich negotiations ended

A group of Wall Street Journal reporters have reported and written a detailed story about the negotiations involved in the release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw, Bojan Pancevski and Aruna Viswanatha write, “Ella knew a trade was imminent when she went back to meet with Sullivan and noticed the national security adviser was looking her in the eyes. When Russia suddenly sped up her son’s trial into a three day process she understood. She stayed up all night on July 19, until the first images of his conviction came in, standing in the glass box of a packed Yekaterinburg courtroom, gaunt and tired, his head shaved as required by the Russian penal system. He stared out passively as a judge sentenced him to 16 years. Then, through his lawyers, he relayed a joke that reached his mother: He was expecting more.

“The Russian Federation had a few final items of protocol to tick through with the man who had become its most famous prisoner. One, he would be allowed to leave with the papers he’d penned in detention, the letters he’d scrawled out and the makings of a book he’d labored over. But first, they had another piece of writing they required from him, an official request for presidential clemency. The text, moreover, should be addressed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

“The pro forma printout included a long blank space the prison could fill out if desired, or simply, as expected, leave blank. In the formal high Russian he had honed over 16 months imprisonment, the Journal’s Russia correspondent filled the page. The last line submitted a proposal of his own: After his release, would Putin be willing to sit down for an interview?”

Read more here.