The State Department in the last few hours designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan

Gershkowicz wrongfully detained.

Its language that we'd already heard from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

In my own mind, there's no doubt that he's being wrongfully detained.

Today, his office made the designation official, which means the U.S. government will have

more resources to work on bringing Gershkowicz home.

Fittingly, the Wall Street Journal broke the story.

Now that they have actually designated him as wrongfully detained, the office of the

special envoy of hostage affairs and other groups within the government are able then

to move forward and push for advocating for Evan's release.

Gershkowicz is of course not the only American to be detained in Russia, but he is a journalist

and he's accused of spying and that has not happened since the Cold War.

Who is Evan?

Why was he arrested?

How might he get out?

We've got some answers coming up on today's explained.

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