In a significant development, Russia has released American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan as part of a complex prisoner exchange involving multiple countries, Bloomberg reports.
Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges, which both he and the US government vehemently denied. He was sentenced to 16 years in a Russian penal colony.
The Wall Street Journal had described the charges as “false and baseless,” and President Joe Biden called Gershkovich’s detention “totally illegal.”
Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive, was detained in 2018 and also convicted on espionage charges.
The details of the prisoner swap, including the identities of those exchanged by the US and its allies, have not yet been officially confirmed. Sources familiar with the matter suggest that the deal involved intricate negotiations with multiple countries.
According to Reuters, flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed that a special Russian government plane, previously used for a prisoner swap with the United States, flew from Moscow to Kaliningrad before returning to the Russian capital. Additionally, Russian outlet Agenstvo reported that at least six special Russian government planes had recently flown to and from regions housing dissidents.
Reports indicate that four Russian prisoners were freed from the US under the deal. Citing the Russian news agency TASS, the released prisoners—Alexander Vinnik, Vladislav Klyushin, Vadim Konoschenko, and Maxim Marchenko—had been removed from the FBI electronic database, signaling the swap. These individuals were convicted of various offenses, including money laundering and smuggling.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to confirm the development, stating, “I’m still not making any comments on this.”
The multi-country prisoner exchange involves Russia and Belarus on one side, and the United States, Germany, and Slovenia on the other. This swap is reportedly the largest between the US and Russia since the Cold War.
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