“In theory” Moscow will not rule out the possibility of releasing jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Russian president Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson in an interview released Thursday.
Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American journalist, was arrested in Russia last year on espionage charges. His pre-trial detention has been extended several times, most recently until March 30, at which point he will have spent more than a year behind bars awaiting a trial. He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and U.S. officials have defended the reporter’s innocence.
“The grounds for Evan’s detention are baseless,” the American embassy in Moscow wrote in a post on X last month. “Journalism is not a crime. We continue to call for Evan’s immediate release.”
During a more than two-hour-long interview published on Thursday, Carlson asked Putin if, as a sign of his decency, he would be willing to release the journalist to his team to take him back to the U.S.
“We have done so many gestures of good will out of decency that I think we have run out of them,” Putin responded. “We have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps.”
Carlson pushed back, saying Gershkovich is “obviously not a spy” and suggested it would be unfair for Russia to demand a prisoner exchange for the reporter’s release.
Putin maintained the reporter was “receiving confidential information, and he did it covertly.”
“He’s not just a journalist, I reiterate he’s a journalist who was secretly getting confidential information,” Putin said. “I do not rule out that person you refer to, Mr. Gershkovich, may return to his motherland by the day it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia.”
The U.S. government has designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which requires American officials to work to free him.
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who is similarly considered to be wrongfully detained as he serves a 16-year sentence for spying, previously said he felt “abandoned” by the U.S.
The interview makes Carlson the first Western journalist to interview the Russian dictator since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Carlson, for his part, said he chose to interview the Russian dictator because “most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now.”
“We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin. . . . We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can,” Carlson said in a video statement published on Tuesday.
“Americans have a right to know all they can about a war they’re implicated in, and we have the right to tell them about it,” he added.
Carlson has been critical of American aid to Ukraine and of Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky.
“Zelensky has no interest in freedom and democracy. In fact, Zelensky is far closer to Lenin than to George Washington. He is a dictator. He is a dangerous authoritarian who has used a hundred billion in U.S. tax dollars to erect a one-party police state in Ukraine,” Carlson said in 2022.