Hostage expert on Evan Gershkovich situation, behind the scenes work to secure his release from Russia
Former special envoy for Hostage Affairs Hugh Dugan speaks with Fox News Digital about the behind-the-scenes works to free Americans held abroad like reporter Evan Gershkovich.
The imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich shows Russia's "disregard for human rights" and lack of concern about the consequences, according to a longtime diplomat and former Special Envoy for Hostage affairs.
"It’s in their history as the Soviet Union. And now, unfortunately, it's surfaced again as the Russian Federation," Hugh Dugan, who served as acting Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs during the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital.
"When they subject somebody’s human rights to this level, it shows that they do not respect the individual in their society, their communist, so to speak, roots are very evident and present again," Dugan continued. "People are mere tokens for the government's purpose and that the government does not exist of, by and for the people. But it exists over the people."
Dugan said the role of the hostage envoy is to serve as the country's "leading diplomatic voice in trying to broker a release of the hostage or wrongful detainee," and the first order of business is creating a "line of inquiry," which is sometimes referred to as a "line of effort." This process helps the U.S. identify how to approach each unique case based on whatever limited knowledge exists.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court, in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
"In the Evan case, it seems as though this was a targeted effort to actually seek and take him as a wrongful detainee with probably premeditated purposes," Dugan said. "I'm not sure if those purposes were based on a certain hostage swap type of scenario, or if simply the Russians decided that this would make for good optics and create a platform for them from which to bargain going forward, whatever the outcome might be."
Dugan, who previously served as U.S. Delegate to the United Nations & advisor to 11 US Ambassadors to the United Nations between 1989 and 2015, believes that any country that would brazenly take an American hostage has already calculated the potential consequences. With that in mind, Dugan doesn’t think foreign adversaries are particularly concerned on the heels of high-profile incidents such as Gershkovich and WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was returned to the United States in December. Convicted of cannabis possession and smuggling, she was freed in a prisoner swap in which Russia received Viktor Bout, an arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death."
Gershkovich was detained March 29 in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia, and charged with collecting "information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex," according to Russian state media outlet Tass. Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have both vehemently denied the charges.
The U.S. has denied the Kremlin’s allegation that Gershkovich is a spy as ridiculous on its face, as have his colleagues, who describe the 31-year-old as a diligent reporter who is being used due to his high-profile role as an American journalist.
"The fact that we see more of this, and higher profile cases, indicates that the captors have done their calculation and they don't believe the consequences will be as severe," Dugan said.
Once Gershkovich was ruled "wrongfully detained" by Russia, it allowed his case to be specially handled by the State Department's Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs where Dugan once called the shots. This unlocked more resources for his potential release and signified that he is viewed officially as a political prisoner and not a legitimate detainee.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court, in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. (AP)
Dugan noted the Biden administration and Roger Carstens, the current Envoy for Hostage Affairs, are using a procedure and tools that have only been in place since 2015 when attempting to bring Gershkovich, and other hostages, home.
"This machinery includes the creation of a special envoy and also what we call a Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, which sits over at the FBI. It's a large room with representatives from each of the agencies of the U.S. government who sit every day to try to assess each case and bring each piece of knowledge to the surface so that we might piece together the puzzle that could bring that person home," he said.
"What's behind the scenes when a hostage situation occurs is what I call the black box. And there are three black boxes. The first black box is the box in which the hostage finds himself. The second black box is that mysterious box which the negotiator looks at and says, ‘We know what goes in one end and we know what we want to come out the other. We just don't know what's happening in the middle,’" Dugan continued. "And the third black box is the type of black box theater that all of us as public and legislators and media can see happening. We're inside a theater of sorts. And sometimes the actions that we undertake as family or public or media might have a direct effect for good or for bad on the outcome."
Dugan believes that keeping a particular hostage, such as Gershkovich, in the spotlight can sometimes help the situation, but the tragic scenario lacks a cookie-cutter approach.
"If we raise the level of attention to such a degree that the captors compute that this hostage is worth more than they thought, then it may prove more difficult to get the recovery or far more expensive than otherwise," he said.
WALL STREET JOURNAL DEFENDS REPORTER AFTER HE'S ARRESTED BY RUSSIA ON SUSPICION OF ESPIONAGE
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service and charged with espionage. (Wall Street Journal/Screenshot)
As far as Gershkovich goes, Dugan believes he has come off as a "very brave person" who has kept his composure. The reporter made his first public appearance in Russia since being arrested when he appeared in court last month. Gershkovich appeared poised as he was seen at a hearing in a see-through detention box, wearing jeans and a blue-checkered shirt. Outlets and colleagues across the world have called for his release and keeping his case in the public eye.
Gershkovich has also told his parents he’s "not losing hope" in a handwritten letter. He also indicated he hasn’t lost his sense of humor with a joke about his mother’s cooking.
"Many times the hostage case will be resolved by how the hostage handles themselves in the case. And so far, he seems to have kept his head on his shoulders and hasn't worsened his situation, as far as we can see" Dugan said, noting that the first 45 minutes of captivity is often a critical period for the hostage.
"How the person reacts, whether they fight, whether they decide to argue, whether they decide to be relatively passive and cooperative, whether they threaten the captors with consequences that they may never be able to deliver" are all elements that could determine how the situation is ultimately resolved.
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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained March 29 in Yekaterinburg. (Fox News)
"Taking a national hostage by another country is tantamount to a war-type of effort on their part. That's an aggression that escalates almost to the point of no return," Dugan said. "They're breaking the norms of international society and now taking it to a personal level more and more is very disturbing."
President Biden paid tribute to Gershkovich and his family at Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner, saying his administration was taking all steps to bring him home.
"To the entire family, everyone in this hall stands with you. We're working every day to secure his release," Biden said. "We keep the faith."
Facing near certain conviction in a closed Kremlin court, Gershkovich would face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
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Fox News’ Caitlin McFall and Greg Norman contributed to this report.