The family of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who the US State Department classifies as wrongly detained by Russia, have spoken out for the first time in an exclusive video interview with the newspaper.
Ednews informs via Wall Street that WSJ reporter Shelby Holliday asked the journalist's father, Mikhail, if the pair ever talked about what could happen to him as a journalist in Russia. Mikhail said "no" but said he trusted his son and his judgement.
"Of course, it makes things more difficult for me now. [Because] I feel I've failed in some way as a father," he added.
Following Gershkovich's detention on March 29, his mother Ella Milman, who left the Soviet Union for the United States in 1979, said she had a sixth sense that something had happened to him.
His sister Danielle spoke of how her parents, who emigrated from the Soviet Union separately but in the same year, raised her and Evan to have pride in where they came from.
She said she was "in awe of him" when reading about Russia through his reporting
Danielle noted that her and her brother are "so different. I'm a home body. He's a thrill seeker, an adventure. I can't even relate to him sometimes in the life he leads, as a reporter.
"I think... America reports on Russia sometimes in a way that makes it seem like a pretty terrifying cold place, he was really passionate about showing other sides… the nuance and the beauty of it," Danielle said.