Evan Gershkovich is the Wall Street Journal's Moscow reporter. He's been imprisoned in Russia since March last year, and has just gone on trial there - the first American journalist to be jailed in Russia since the Cold War. He's accused of espionage, something he, his employer and his government all strenuously deny.

To his friends, like Jeremy Berke, he is "the most extroverted person that I've ever met in my whole life". He loves football and is a dedicated Arsenal fan - so much so that he'd get his flatmates in Brooklyn up at 7am on Sunday mornings - despite them having been out on the town together till the early hours - to watch Arsenal matches with him on TV.

The son of Soviet-born, Jewish parents who'd fled to the USA in the late 70s, he grew up speaking Russian at home. Once in Moscow as a reporter, his fellow correspondents - many of whom quickly became friends too - were impressed by his drive, his knowledge of Russia's language and culture, his ease at making contacts, and his willingness to go the extra mile - often literally, to places like the remote Russian republics of Udmurtia and Yakutia.

He's now been detained for fifteen months and counting. Gershkovich's friends and family say his release can't come too soon; they're waiting to welcome him home with hugs, and the desire "to never let him leave again".

CONTRIBUTORS Joshua Yaffa, Moscow Correspondent of the New Yorker magazine, friend of Evan Gershkovich Jeremy Burke, MBA student at Columbia university, and Editor-in-chief of “Cultivated” media, friend of Evan Gershkovich Deborah Ball, Deputy World Editor of Wall Street Journal Nora Biette-Timmons, friend of Evan Gershkovich Pjotr Sauer, Russia Correspondent of The Guardian, friend and colleague Danielle Gershkovich, sister of Evan

PRODUCTION TEAM Presenter: Mark Coles Producers: Arlene Gregorius, Julie Ball Editor: Penny Murphy Sound: Neil Churchill Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele

NFPA 241 (2022) Updates w/ Lt. Towski CFD