WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday urged Russia to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich after the country’s security service arrested him on espionage charges — allegations that the newspaper denies.
“Let him go,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday morning when asked about his message to Russia on the arrest of Gershkovich.
Russia’s Federal Security Service has accused Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, of trying to obtain classified information. It is the first time an American journalist has been detained on accusations of spying since the Cold War. The Journal has said it “vehemently denies” the charges.
The Biden administration said Thursday that it was working to secure consular access to Gershkovich. Asked Friday morning whether he would expel Russian diplomats or journalists in the U.S., Biden responded: “That’s not the plan right now.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the targeting of U.S. citizens in Russia “unacceptable” and that the administration condemns the detention of Gershkovich “in the strongest terms.”
The Biden administration has also warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Russia, and for Americans in the country now to depart immediately.
Lefortovo prison, where the American journalist is being held, dates from the czarist era and has been a terrifying symbol of repression since Soviet times.
The inconspicuous, pale yellow complex in eastern Moscow was built as a military penitentiary in 1881 and was used for low-ranking convicts sentenced to relatively short terms. But it gained its notoriety after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when it became a top detention facility for the Soviet secret police.
Under Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s Great Terror of mass arrests in the 1930s, Lefortovo was one of the main pre-trial detention facilities for “enemies of the people,” equipped with torture chambers to extract confessions. Stalin’s sadistic secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, personally took part in some prisoner interrogations and executions in its basement.
Vasily Blyukher, one of the highest-ranking Red Army officers, was among those who died in 1938 after being tortured in Lefortovo.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, the prison continued to serve as main detention facility for the KGB, which used it for espionage suspects and political dissidents. Stalin’s younger son Vasily was held in Lefortovo at one point following his father’s death as the country’s new leaders prosecuted him for various offences.
While Lefortovo has maintained its distinctive Soviet-era feel, one addition was a small Russian Orthodox church built on its grounds with small separate prayer cabins to keep inmates from being seen by others.
Authorities maintain a tight lid of secrecy on Lefortovo, not disclosing any details such as the number of prisoners held there. Russian media reports said it hosts no more than 200 prisoners at a time, normally kept in solitary confinement.
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