With his russian counterpart, urging moscow to release the reporter, who works for "the wall street journal." today, a moscow court said gershkovich is appealing his detention. >> evan is a journalist. everyone you talk to knows avenue and is a jour journalist. he's not a spy. >> reporter: pjotr sauer is a close friend of gershkovich and a fellow journalist. is it possible he is essentially being used as a hostage by the russian government? >> yeah, it's hostagetaking. we don't know why they're doing it at this point but we know that the spying charges are complete the absurd. >> reporter: rus...