Congressional leaders found a rare moment of unity Friday to issue a joint statement condemning the detention of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, marking one year since his captivity in Russian began.

“Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has now spent a year wrongfully detained by Putin’s government. We continue to condemn his baseless arrest, fabricated charges, and unjust imprisonment,” Speaker Mike Johnson R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky., said in the statement.

Gershkovich was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the modern successor to the Soviet’s KGB, on March 29, 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains of Yekaterinburg. The FSB claims he was there to obtain state secrets on behalf of the U.S. government but has not produced evidence to support the accusation. 

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