Washington, Aug. 1 (Adnkronos) – Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, released by Russia today, Thursday, August 1. The liberation of the Wall Street Journal journalist, the former marine, the dissident and collaborator of the Washington Post and the Russian-American journalist takes place as part of a major exchange of prisoners. Bloomberg initially broke the news, cited by several international media.
Then the confirmation of the Turkish presidency which, through a statement, announced that the exchange of prisoners took place in Ankara. The prisoners, it announced, come from the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus. Ten people, including two minors, were transferred to Russia, 13 prisoners to Germany and three to the United States, the statement cited by the BBC continues.
Turkey’s intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), has established “channels of dialogue” for the exchange of prisoners, the Turkish presidency later stressed. “The parties were brought together in Turkey in July 2024 with the organization of the MİT,” it added. “Negotiations were held regarding the exchange activity to be carried out between Russian citizens and citizens of Western countries detained in the United States, Germany, Poland, Norway, Slovenia, Russia and Belarus.”
The exchange between seven countries in Ankara was managed by the Turkish intelligence agency “from the beginning of the negotiation process until the last moment when the exchanges were made,” it later said. “All security measures, logistical planning” were fulfilled by the MIT, which also ensured communication and coordination between the parties, the presidency concluded.
“Today, three American citizens and one American green card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally returning home: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza,” U.S. President Joe Biden announced in a statement.
The deal that freed three American citizens and a U.S. Green Card holder held in Russia “was a diplomatic feat. Overall, we negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country,” Biden said, adding: “Some of these men and women had been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”
The exchange that took place in Ankara includes 26 people, two of them minors. The 26 include the following names: three American citizens and one resident returning from Russia: journalist Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, a resident of the United States.
Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg for espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison. According to Russian intelligence, the journalist acted “on instructions from the American side” to obtain “information covered by state secrecy about the activity of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex.”
The 12 German citizens and Russian political prisoners who will be returned to Germany are: Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Sasha Skochilenko.
The released Russian citizens are: Vadim Krasikov, from Germany, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, from Slovenia, Anna Valerevna Dultseva, from Slovenia, Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, from Norway, Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, from Norway, Roman Seleznev, from the United States, Vladislav Klyushin, from the United States, Vadim Konoshchenock, from the United States.
Krasikov was serving a life sentence for a 2019 murder in Germany that prosecutors said was ordered by Russian federal authorities.
“We are not saying anything about this yet,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented when asked by Tass for confirmation.
Several times in recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has hinted at the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the case, referring to contacts between Moscow and Washington at the intelligence level. Gershkovich’s situation has also entered the American election campaign ahead of the presidential vote in November: Donald Trump has said and repeated that the journalist’s release would come after his election and before the start of his mandate. The new president-elect will take office in January 2025.
The ongoing prisoner swap between Russia and the West could be “the beginning of a new chapter for the whole world,” Russian lawmaker Maria Butina told CNN on Thursday. Butina, a State Duma lawmaker for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, has herself been held captive in the United States and said that Russian prisoners repatriated from the U.S. “have been through terrible times and will need time to recover.”
“This exchange simply means the success of our diplomacy and I am happy that all parties involved in the negotiations did everything right, despite the situation,” she added, referring to the war between Russia and Ukraine. “I would not connect it directly with Ukraine, but I would and would like to hope that this is the beginning of a new page for the whole world, although I would not be so optimistic that it could mean something for the relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Butina concluded.
