Americans freed after prison swap with Russia return to US soil
WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia completed the largest prisoner swap in Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with other dissidents. This is Vladimir Kara-Murza, in an international agreement that established twenty people. for free.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual American-Russian citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight to be reunited with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to congratulate them.
Trade opened despite relations between Washington and Moscow at their lowest point since the Cold War following Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Backchannel negotiators at one time explored a deal involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February, a 24-point deal was finally put together that required significant mediation from European allies, including the release of a Russian murderer, and the defense of freedom. for a group of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden sounded the exchange, the largest in a series of negotiations with Russia, as diplomatic as he welcomed American families back to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an inherent imbalance: The United States and its allies gave up Russians accused or convicted of crimes in exchange for freeing Russian journalists, dissidents and people. – Others have been jailed by the country's political legal system for allegations found by journalists. Western as designed.
“A deal like this comes with a strong appeal,” Biden said, adding, “Nothing is more important to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with freed Russian prisoners as they arrive at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, on August 1, 2024. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP )
As part of the deal, Russia extradited Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July on espionage charges that the US government denies. Her family said in a press release that “we can't wait to give her our biggest hugs and see her sweet, brave smile up close.” Editor-in-chief Emma Tucker called it a “happy day”.
“As we waited for that big day, we were determined to push as hard as we could on Evan's behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that have been raised when theirs has been silenced. We can finally say in unison, 'Welcome home, Evan,'” she wrote in a letter posted online.
Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed until 2018 on espionage charges he and Washington denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading disinformation about the Russian military, charges denied by his family and employer.
Freed dissidents include Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who served 25 years on what are widely considered political treason charges, as well as several associates of Navalny. Among the Kremlin critics freed are Oleg Orlov, a senior human rights activist convicted of defaming the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, jailed for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The Russian side has 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 for the command of the security service in Moscow. During the negotiations, Moscow persisted in pressing for his release, and Putin himself initiated it.
In this photo taken from a video provided by the Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on August 1, 2024, Germany's Patrick Schoebel, center, is escorted by the Russian Federal Security Service, left, upon arrival at an airport outside Moscow. (AP)
At the time of Navalny's death, officials were discussing a possible exchange of money with Krasikov. But as that hope faded, senior US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a new push to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a minority of the prisoners released by Russia were German nationals or German-Russian dual nationals.
Russia also received two sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men indicted by US federal authorities, including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, accused as a Russian intelligence agent. by providing electronic equipment and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returns academic arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy; Poland has returned a man it arrested on espionage charges.
“Today is a powerful example of why friendship is so important in this world,” Biden said.
All told, six countries released at least one prisoner and the seventh – Turkiye – took part in hosting the exchange, in Ankara.
Biden put securing the release of Americans illegally detained overseas at the top of his foreign policy agenda in the six months before he left office. In an Oval Office speech discussing his decision to end his bid for a second term, Biden said, “We also work every day to bring the American people unjustly detained around the world.”
One Thursday, he shook Whelan's sister Elizabeth's hand and said he was almost sitting in the White House when the government tried to free Paul. Then he pushed Kurmasheva's daughter Miriam closer and took her hand, telling the room that it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. He wiped away his tears.
The Biden administration has now extradited more than 70 Americans imprisoned in other countries as part of a deal that required the United States to surrender convicted criminals, including felonies and weapons. battle. The exchanges, while celebrated with great fanfare, have drawn criticism that they encourage future hostage-taking and empower adversaries of the United States and its allies.
The US government's top negotiator, Roger Carstens, sought to defend the deal by saying that the number of Americans detained arbitrarily has actually decreased even as exchanges have increased.
Tucker, the Journal's editor-in-chief, acknowledged the controversy, writing in a letter: “We know the U.S. government is well aware, as we are, that the only way to prevent a rapid round of arrests is to an innocent person as a horseman. The geopolitical game is only to remove the incentive for Russia and other countries that follow this abominable practice.”
Wall Street Journal editors and reporters listen to Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker discuss the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich on August 1, 2024, at the offices of The Wall Street Journal in New York. (The Wall Street Journal via AP)
Although he called for change, “for now,” he wrote, “we celebrate Evan's return.”
Thursday's 24-person prisoner exchange surpassed a deal involving 14 in 2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the United States, while Moscow expelled four Russians, including this is Sergei Skripal, a double agent working for British intelligence. In 2018, she and her daughter were almost killed in Britain due to nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.
Speculation that a deal was imminent had been mounting for weeks amid a flurry of unusual developments, including the speedy trial of Gershkovich, who Washington has accused of fraud. He was sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison.
In a trial that ended in two days in secret in the same week as Gershkovich's, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military that her family denied. , employers and US authorities. In recent days, several other people imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or for working with Navalny have been transferred to unknown locations.
Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, while reporting to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Officials said, without providing evidence, that they were collecting classified information for the United States.
Gershkovich, like Whelan, was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence, has been cleared of previous high-profile deals involving Russia, including Moscow's April 2022 swap for veteran Trevor Reed. -sea prisoner for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of conspiracy to smuggle drugs. . This December, it released notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was jailed on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. “Our family is grateful to the US government for granting Paul's freedom,” his family said in a statement.
