Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Raging Putin’s Table-Slamming Meltdown Revealed

thedailybeast.com · 6h · first reportShare

The Wall Street Journal reporter who spent 16 months behind bars in Russia has revealed that Vladimir Putin once exploded in a fit of rage while talking about him. Evan Gershkovich, released in 2024 after a grueling 491 days in custody, writes that he has since uncovered what likely led to his arrest—and Putin’s visceral private reaction when pressed on whether he should have ever been detained as a foreign agent at all. In an excerpt from a forthcoming book, Gershkovich reveals that Putin slammed a table and yelled that the New Jersey-born reporter was an “idiot” in response to a world leader expressing doubt that Russia could have arrested Gershkovich so easily if he was truly a spy, as Moscow alleged. Read more at The Daily Beast.