Ella Milman was undaunted: She would return her son from captivity in Russia.
“We just have to be patient, and optimistic,” she told ABC News in March 2024, a year after her son, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, was arrested and charged with collecting state secrets on behalf of the U.S. government. “Evan will be released.”
Milman, a civilian, was an instrumental part of the agreement that led to the August release of her son, along with 15 others, in Turkey in the largest post-Cold War prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia.
It took the skill of a diplomat to get there — and the motivation of a mother.
Milman was horrified that her son was being held in a notorious Russian prison, Lefortovo, on charges she and Western nations considered blatantly false. She and her husband, Mikhail Gershkovich, were both Jewish emigres who left the Soviet Union separately in 1979 and married in the United States, raising two children in Russian culture and American values.
“I have a Soviet upbringing, and we always expect the worst,” Milman told the Journal last year. “But I believe in the American dream, and I hope for a positive ending.”
Milman worked diligently from the start. When she first learned of her son’s arrest, Milman texted an editor at the Journal, “What do I do?” according to the newspaper.
In her work on the case, after much research, Milman focused on Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Chechen separatist.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had made no secret about the fact that he wanted Krasikov back, and Milman reportedly saw him as the key to a prisoner exchange.
She spent hours on the phone, met with officials from both the U.S. and the Journal, and conducted interviews with media outlets.
She was fearless: attending Evan Gershkovich’s June trial in Russia, meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to urge him to accept a prisoner swap deal, pushing President Biden to cement the deal.
When her son was finally back, Milman and her husband sent out a statement expressing immense relief.
“We have waited 491 days for Evan’s release, and it’s hard to describe what today feels like,” they said. “Most important now is taking care of Evan and being together again.”
