THE White House last night said there have been talks about the prospect of a prisoner swap for Evan Gershkovich, “but those discussions have not produced a clear pathway to a resolution.”
It comes after media workers around the world marked 100 days since the Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested by Russia.
Earlier this week, the Kremlin said certain contacts between Russia and the United States on the exchange of prisoners remain, but they must be carried out “in complete silence.”
“As we’ve said before, certain contacts on this matter remain, but we do not want to make them public in any way. They must be carried out and continue in complete silence,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
Yesterday marked 100 days since the Wall Street Journal reporter was detained while on assignment in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural mountains.
Arrested on “suspicion of espionage”, the correspondent was transferred to the notorious Lefortovo prison near Moscow, where he has since been held in solitary confinement, without trial.
His appeal against the extension of his pretrial detention to the end of August was denied.
The American ambassador has been allowed to visit him only twice during his imprisonment.
Gershkovich’s health and spirits are reportedly holding up well, and yet these past 100 days spent in a tiny cell will have passed agonisingly slowly for a young man who was simply doing his job.
The Russian authorities have offered no evidence that Gershkovich was doing anything other in Yekaterinburg than gathering information to share with his newspaper’s readers.