Evan Gershkovich has been convicted of espionage and sentenced to a term of 16 years in a Russian prison. In addition, he was fined costs equivalent to $77 (U.S.), and certain of his personal belongings — including his iPhone and his notepad — were ordered destroyed. Not simply confiscated . . . destroyed.

Talk has now turned to the possibility of an exchange of Gershkovich for someone the Russians want released from a foreign prison: quite possibly Vadim Krasikov, presently serving a life sentence in Germany for the brazen daytime assassination of a Chechen emigre in Berlin.

And all of this is of the utmost importance. But we must not let it distract us from the equally urgent situations of others presently being held on false, purely political charges in Russian prisons:

– Vladimir Kara-Murza (British-Russian)
– Alsu Kurmasheva (American-Russian)
– Paul Whelan (American)
– Marc Hilliard Fogel (American)
– Staff Sgt. Gordon Black (American)
– Robert Woodland Romanov (American-Russian)

With the exception of U.K. citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza — whose situation is dire as he is kept incommunicado, in unknown physical condition, in the prison hospital at Prison Colony No. 7 in Omsk, Siberia — we hear little or nothing about the U.S. citizens being wrongfully imprisoned. And that silence is terrifying for them and their families at home.

Negotiations for exchanges may be underway for some or all of them, and if so, those talks are understandably not made public until they are concluded. But in the meantime, the prisoners and their loved ones live in a vacuum. There must be no letup in the pressure to bring them home.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
7/19/24