Vladimir Putin said a deal can be reached to secure the return of imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich — but his country has run out of “gestures of goodwill.”
In a rare one-on-one interview with Tucker Carlson, the Russian President said he could see a deal being reached for the journalist, who has been charged with spying, “if our partners take reciprocal steps.”
“There is no taboo to settle this issue,” he told Carlson in the pre-recorded interview at the Kremlin in Moscow.
“We are willing to solve it but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached.”
Gershkovich, 32, was detained by Russian authorities in March while on a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,200 miles east of Moscow.
Russia’s Federal Security Service alleged that the reporter, under instruction from the US, “collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
Gershkovich and the Journal deny the allegations, and the US government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. Russian authorities haven’t released any evidence to support the espionage charges.
Putin told Carlson that under Russian law, the journalist committed espionage and claimed he was working for US special services.
“The fact has been proven as he was caught red-handed when he was receiving this information,” Putin said.
“If it had been some farfetched excuse, some fabrication, something not proven, it would have been a different story then. But he was caught red-handed when he was secretly getting confidential information.”
Putin added that Gershkovich is “not just a journalist.”
“I reiterate. He’s a journalist who is secretly getting confidential information,” he said.
“Yes, it is different, but still, I’m talking about other people who are essentially controlled by the US authorities, wherever they are serving a sentence.”
Putin said he “wants him to return to his homeland at last. I’m absolutely sincere.”
“But at the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia. We want the U.S. Special Services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing. We are ready to talk. Moreover, the talks are underway,” he said, adding he believes a successful deal is likely.
Carlson’s interview with Putin, recorded in Moscow, is one of the first times in years that the Russian president agreed to sit down for an interview with a Western journalist.
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