MAINE, Maine — Wednesday marks 231 days that Bowdoin College graduate and Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich has been detained in Russia.
Most recently, Russian courts have rejected appeals from lawyers to free Gershkovich. His next court hearing is scheduled for the end of this month.
The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government have fully denied the claims Russians make of espionage, saying Gershkovich doesn't work and has never worked for the U.S. government. They also say the Russian government has not provided evidence to support its allegations of espionage.
Gershkovich is considered by the U.S. government to be "wrongfully detained." His sister, Danielle, said she and her family are urging U.S. officials to work for her brother's release. She said his family has only been able to communicate with him through letters for the past 231 days.
"These letters, we send them to each other about once a week, and it's a lifeline for all of us. I think we get as much from those letters as he gets from us, and it's just a way to be able to speak to him," Danielle told NEWS CENTER Maine. "I hear his voice in my head when I read those letters, and yeah he and I make a lot of sibling kind of style jokes. I try to make him laugh, and he's hilarious, so those are little bright spots amongst all of this."
Danielle also said her brother was just doing his job, and his detention is an assault on the free press. After after his release, she believes he will likely return to the newsroom to keep telling stories that matter.
Under Russian law, Gershkovich can be detained for up to one year before a trial has to begin.
Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett said his number one priority is helping free his colleague.
"We hope to be able to, in our way, create a landscape where whatever needs to be done between the governments to bring him home can be done," Beckett explained. "So that's where we focus our efforts and obviously paramount is how Evan is doing and how his family are doing."