Newly released Americans return to US soil after prisoner swap with Russia
WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia completed the largest prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow freeing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational agreement that established two dozen people. free of charge.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual US-Russian citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a happy reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them.
The trade took place despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War following Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At one point, negotiators explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February they forged a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom. for a group of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of exchanges with Russia, as a diplomatic feat as he greeted the families of Americans returning to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an inherent imbalance: The US and allies gave up Russians accused or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others jailed by the country's highly politicized legal system, under charges seen by Russia. The West as adults.
“Offers like this come with tough calls,” Biden said, adding, “There is nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with freed Russian prisoners upon their arrival at Vnukovo Government Airport outside Moscow, Russia, on August 1, 2024. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July on espionage charges that he and the US government vehemently denied. His family said in a statement published by the newspaper that “we can't wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet, brave smile up close.” The paper's editor-in-chief Emma Tucker called it “a happy day”.
“As we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as strong as we could be on Evan's behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that rose up when his fell silent. We can finally say in unison, 'Welcome home, Evan,'” she wrote in a letter posted online.
Also freed was Whelan, a Michigan-based corporate security executive imprisoned since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, charges her family and employer have denied.
Freed dissidents include Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who served 25 years on treason charges widely seen as politically motivated, as well as several associates of Navalny. Critics of the freed Kremlin included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights activist convicted of defaming the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, jailed for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The Russian side took Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently at the behest of Moscow's security services . Throughout the negotiations, Moscow insisted on pressing for his release, with Putin himself lifting it.
In this image taken from video provided by the Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Aug. 1, 2024, Germany's Patrick Schoebel, center, is escorted by a Russian Federal Security Service agent, left, as they arrive at an airport in outside Moscow. (AP)
At the time of Navalny's death, officials were discussing a possible trade involving Krasikov. But with that prospect faded, senior US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a new push to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. Finally, several of the prisoners released by Russia were either German citizens or German-Russian citizens.
Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men indicted by US federal authorities, including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, an alleged Russian intelligence accused. to provide American-made electronic equipment and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returns an academic arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy; Poland has sent back a man it detained on espionage charges.
“Today is a powerful example of why it is vital to have friends in this world,” Biden said.
In total, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh – Turkiye – participated by hosting the exchange location in Ankara.
Biden has placed securing the release of Americans wrongfully detained abroad at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In a speech from the Oval Office discussing his decision to drop his bid for a second term, Biden said: “We are also working around the clock to bring home wrongfully detained Americans around the world.” .
At one point Thursday, he grabbed the hand of Whelan's sister, Elizabeth, and said she had practically lived in the White House while the administration tried to free Paul. He then beckoned Kurmasheva's daughter Miriam over and took her hand, telling the camera that she had turned 13. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
The Biden administration has now brought home more than 70 Americans detained in other countries as part of deals that required the U.S. to release a wide range of convicted criminals, including drug and gun offenses. The exchanges, while celebrated with fanfare, have fueled criticism that they encourage future hostage-taking and give adversaries leverage over the US and its allies.
The US government's top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, tried to defend the deals by saying the number of Americans wrongfully held has fallen even as exchanges have increased.
Tucker, the Journal's editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate, writing in a letter: “We know the U.S. government is well aware, as are we, that the only way to prevent an accelerated cycle of arresting innocent people as pawns in cynical. The geopolitical games are to remove incentives for Russia and other nations pursuing the same abhorrent practice.”
Wall Street Journal editors and reporters listen to Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker talk about the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich on Aug. 1, 2024, at The Wall Street Journal's New York office. (The Wall Street Journal via AP)
Although she called for a change in dynamics, “for now,” she wrote, “we're celebrating Evan's return.”
Thursday's exchange of 24 prisoners topped a deal involving 14 people that was struck in 2010. In the exchange, Washington released 10 Russians living in the US as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal , a double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018 were nearly killed in the UK due to nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.
Speculation has been mounting for weeks that a swap is imminent because of a confluence of unusual developments, including an initial speedy trial for Gershkovich that Washington has dismissed as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in maximum security prison.
In a trial that ended in secret over two days, the same week as Gershkovich's, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military, which her family, her employer and US officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other people jailed in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or their work with Navalny have been moved from prison to unknown locations.
Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, during a reporting trip to the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. The authorities claimed, without providing any evidence, that they were gathering secret information for the US. The son of Soviet émigrés who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence, was excluded from previous high-profile deals involving Russia, including Moscow's April 2022 swap of jailed Navy veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of a drug trafficking conspiracy. . In December, the US released notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who had been jailed on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States government for making Paul's freedom a reality,” his family said in a statement.
