Evans detainment has galvanized journalists and leaders across the globe in a United call for his release but at the heart of the effort to free Evan are some of his closest friends who refuse to give up hope joining me are his childhood and college friends Michael Van Itallie Van Itallie and Jeremy Berke.

Michael and Jeremy I'm so honored to get a chance to talk to you both I know communication has been limited with Evan but have you been able to share letters uh and what can you tell me about how he's holding up Jeremy yeah so we have been able to write to him um and we get letters back from him uh the process is a little bit stilted the letters are translated into Russian um they're read by the FSB and the prison readers before they get to Evan and he can write back to us he handwrites letters in Russian they're translated by a group of friends these are foreign correspondents in in Moscow and in Europe who who um speak both languages and they get back to us and so look we're we're talking to him we know his spirits are remarkably okay almost a year into the process um but it is a bizar situation almost being a pen pal with your friend in 2024 and you know because of the Dual translation sometimes things get a little bit lost but um there's enough in there to know that we're talking to him and we're we're very thankful for that that's a tough game of telephone to play and Michael one I'm sure you never imagined having to do when you met Evan which correct me if I'm wrong was on a soccer field in Princeton when you guys were kids yeah that's right uh we were eight years old um his dad was our coach um and he named the team after his favorite Uh Russian Premier League team which is uh spartac Moscow so we were spartac and um yeah I mean Evan was the same then as he's been my whole life since I've known him uh he sounds like a Really Brave guy and and from what I can tell from how his family is holding up they seem incredibly courageous have you been in contact with them yeah we have um and I would completely second that characterization they've been incredibly strong really risen to the occasion and have been amazing advocates for him his story his release and I think part of that is um the strength that Evan is exuding um I think a lot of people have sort of noticed or or commented on how he's sort of comforting uh his friends and family in his letters and his Communications even in you know when he appears at court and is cracking a smile and sort of uh projecting strength and Poise Jeremy I mean you and Evan met in college you're also a journalist was he aware of the inherent dangers because Russia has not been a friendly place for journalists for many years I don't think Evan was naive to the risk that his reporting carried um I do think that the level that it's gotten to was something that he never expected nor I ever expected you know when we were living together in Brooklyn we had a lot of long late night conversations about his taking his first job in Russia at the Moscow times he felt like this was his calling he felt that Russia was retrenching from the Western World and that someone who was both fluent in the language influent in American culture and Russian culture could be the person to help bridge that Gap and so he went over there U not as an adversarial person but for love of Russian people to try and understand who he was his parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union and so look I think this was a calling to him I think he was absolutely willing to accept some level of risk to do his job and he did his job very well however did he expect it to rise to this occasion did we all expect it to rise to this occasion no and I think you kick over some conversations you had when you're saying like what well you know we talked about that it might be dangerous for him to go to Russia that reporting on the Kremlin uh could be risky at this time especially um with the objectivity and truthfulness that he wanted to report with so look like we had a lot of conversations about that we would talk through Twitter DMS just about the riskiness of what he was doing I mean he early on in the uh Russia's invasion of Ukraine he posted you know scenes from the front in bellarus like he was breaking these big stories about troop movements and obviously you worry about that um 3 months before he was captured I'll say he was in New York in October and you know we were just like sitting around at a friend's apartment he talked about how he would get tailed on some of his stories and you're thinking to yourself like that doesn't sound so good you know but I'm sure but you never imagined he'd be in this position or that you all would be sitting here talking about him no uh not at all and I think the worse we thought would he get kicked out of the country and have a good story to tell about it did I think he would be put first into solitary confinement into one of Russia's most notorious prisons absolutely not this has risen to a level that's frankly unacceptable and I think again while he wasn't naive he did not expect can you share um if he's told you throughout your correspondence what he's doing to pass the time I mean he gets an hour as I understand it outside of his cell but when you are in this prison you never see the other inmates um and you can speak to it better than I that he's a very outgoing person someone who seems to thrive on being social do you know what he's been doing to keep his spirits up yeah so with the things we're happy to share um he does have a cellmate now and so he can chat with someone um though the fortiva just you know excuse the pronunciation um is a notoriously isolating prison it's designed to isolate prisoners and and to wear on their mental state he at least has someone he can talk to um his legal team is able ble to enter the prison at least every two weeks and they talk for a long time the stories we hear is that they're laughing the whole time which I think owes to Evan spirit that he's reassuring everyone else but himself uh he's working out he has you know he has a book of body weight workouts that he's doing push-ups and things like that and trying to stay fit um and there's a TV with some Russian TV channels they watch you know some random whatever is on daytime telion keeping his mental and physical strength up but Michael as we near as we are at this one year mark what do you want the world to know about Evan well um just that he's an incredible guy that he is brilliant he cared about the mission of being a journalist and sort of um his unique uh ability to translate the Russian uh culture and experience um of sort of everyday people um to a western audience and that's really what reporting often focused on was just sort of daily life we're missing him but we're also missing out on uh the incredible work he would be doing on on this story yeah well said uh and he's still bringing all of you guys together even from so far away uh Michael Van Itallie and Jeremy Burke thank you so much thank you thank you