Hi everyone, welcome to Smarter News. I'm Jenna and I'm so glad that you're here today as we take a look at a story that has developed over the last several months. To do so, I want to take you back to March of 2023. Now, for some of us, as of this recording in October, that's going to feel like yesterday

or a million years ago. So let me just set the stage of what we were covering at the time. We were

really taking a look at the one-year mark of the Russian war against Ukraine. President Biden in

February just made a surprise visit to Ukraine.

We had just covered as well a surprise visit by the Chinese president into Russia.

And we were really asking the question about what's next in this conflict and what it means as well for world events.

It was in the context of this reporting that I had sourced on the final week of March an article from the Wall Street Journal to share with you.

And it was a fascinating report reported from inside Russia that was taking a look at the Russian

economy.

And it was raising the question about the strength of the Russian economy, how that would

affect the nation's posture in its war against Ukraine,

but also its status around the world. And it was so well reported and provided such insight.

It was one of the stories that I decided to share with you at Smarter News. One of the journalists

behind that story was a reporter by the name of Evan Grishkovich. And a few days after he filed

that report for the Wall Street Journal and was published, he was on a reporting trip in Russia,

where he had worked for several years as an accredited journalist. And it was during this reporting

trip that he was suddenly arrested by Russian authorities, arrested and imprisoned on charges of espionage.

He's the first American journalist since the Cold War to be arrested and imprisoned on espionage

charges in Russia. And this was a very significant event because this is one of our own citizens being arrested

for what the Wall Street Journal and the United States is describing as false charges. But since March,

Evan has remained in the custody of Russian authorities. He's remained in prison. And the next steps in his case are in many ways to be

determined. We have some ideas, as you will hear in the following conversation about what comes

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