As the last American journalist to be detained in Russia and falsely accused of espionage, Nicholas Daniloff has some understanding of what Evan Gershkovich is going through.

“It’s a tough situation to be in,” the veteran reporter told VOA.

Daniloff was held for about a month during the Cold War in 1986 under circumstances similar to Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Moscow has accused Gershkovich of espionage, without providing evidence. It’s a charge The Journal and Gershkovich’s lawyer strongly deny.

“It’s very easy to accuse journalists of espionage because some of the work is rather similar,” Daniloff told VOA this week. “Digging up information, particularly information that’s not widely known — that gives something of an impression of espionage, although it’s not.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has called Russia’s detention of Gershkovich “totally illegal.”

The president, who spoke with Gershkovich’s parents on Tuesday as he flew to Belfast, has condemned the reporter’s arrest.

“We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so,” Biden said earlier that day before he left Washington.

Few people understand the plight of Gershkovich like Daniloff. The pair are among the lone members of a club no journalist wants to join.

Different time, same prison

Daniloff had just a few days left of his five-year tour as Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report when on August 30, 1986, the KGB arrested him in a park while he was saying goodbye to someone he thought was a friend.

Daniloff was then accused of being a spy and taken to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison — the same prison where Gershkovich is being held.

It’s the kind of prison the Kremlin uses “to house prisoners when Moscow wanted to make an example of them,” Daniloff wrote in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

Daniloff was released following negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. The reporter and two human rights dissidents were swapped for a Soviet physicist who was caught receiving classified U.S. information in the New York subway.

Daniloff, now 88 and living in Boston, Massachusetts, said the memories of that time have started to fade, but he has been thinking about Gershkovich since the reporter’s arrest.

“Some of it is very upsetting,” he said.

Daniloff said his initial reaction on hearing of Gershkovich’s arrest was, “This stinks.”

“Being arrested and held in the custody of Russian authorities is never a happy situation,” he added. “But if you speak Russian,” which both Daniloff and Gershkovich do, “when you are dealing with your jailers, you discover that they also are human beings,” Daniloff said.

Daniloff said his primary concern about Gershkovich is his physical safety.

“If I had a conversation with him at this moment, the first thing I want to know is, ‘How are you being treated? Are you being treated like a human being?’” Daniloff said. ‘Or are you being in some fashion denigrated by the folks who are holding you?’”

‘An intimidating signal’

Daniloff and Gershkovich are also linked in other ways. Daniloff is the American grandson of a Russian general who fled after the Russian Revolution, whereas Gershkovich is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish emigres.

“Arresting a journalist who speaks Russian and has family ties to the country is designed to send an intimidating signal to others,” Daniloff wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich’s arrest was likely intended to frighten all foreign reporters still working inside Russia, according to Julia Davis, founder of Russian Media Monitor, which tracks Russian state TV.

“It serves as a message to other journalists who are still there and who would dare to talk about what’s really happening with Russia’s economy and with its defense industry,” Davis said. “That if they do that, they will be portrayed as a spy and not a journalist, and might end up being imprisoned, which is especially horrific in a country like Russia that is truly lawless under (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”

That apparent lawlessness is what gives Daniloff particular concern about what could happen to Gershkovich.

“It seems to me that you have to stand up for the things that you believe in as a Western correspondent, which probably will irritate your so-called hosts,” Daniloff said. “The thing that impresses me are the journalists who find themselves in this situation who don’t crumble but who stand up for the values that they have been taught by their Western background and their Western mentors. And I think you need to stick with that.”

Russia’s Washington embassy did not reply to a VOA email requesting comment.

‘Try to avoid crumbling’

Daniloff said the most important thing Gershkovich can do is to remain strong as best he can.

“The question is, ‘How do you behave when you are in custody?’” he said. “I think that one should try to avoid crumbling. One should try to avoid coming under the sway of your captors. And you should try to speak the language of the free press and so forth. That’s not so easy to do. But I would hope that that would be the stance that one might take.”

Since Gershkovich was arrested, a lot of attention has been paid to updates on his situation from the media and the U.S. government.

Less than two weeks after his arrest, and just a few days after he was formally charged with espionage, the State Department on April 10 designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” a label that unlocks additional government resources to help free the reporter.

‘It’s important to stand up’

Daniloff said he hopes that attention will not wane in the coming weeks.

“I think coverage of his situation is important. And it’s important from the point of view of […] journalists who try to tell the truth so they know it. Because on their side of the border, there might well be a temptation to say things that are not completely true,” he said.

Despite the obvious safety risks facing foreign reporters inside Russia, Daniloff said he still thinks it is important for foreign reporters to do their best to cover the country from within.

“I think that it’s important for journalists — Western journalists — to be there and to try to live by Western standards,” Daniloff said. “Western standards may well violate customs or perhaps even laws in Russia. Still, it’s important to stand up and speak out.”
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