Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan back in US after being released in international prisoner swap with Russia

WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia on Thursday completed the largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, with Moscow freeing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow countryman Paul Whelan, as well as dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza. Twenty-four people were freed under an international agreement.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsou Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen journalist, arrived on U.S. soil shortly before midnight to joyfully reunite with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them and give hugs to everyone around them.

The trade came 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. Negotiators in behind-the-scenes talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February, they ultimately stitched together a 24-part deal that required major concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured the freedom of a group of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.

Biden trumpeted the swap, by far the largest in a series of exchanges with Russia, as a diplomatic feat, welcoming families of returning Americans to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an inherent imbalance: The U.S. and allies extradited Russians accused or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others imprisoned by the country’s highly politicized legal system on charges the West sees as trumped up.

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“Deals like this involve difficult decisions,” Biden said. He added: “Nothing means more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

Under the deal, Russia freed Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was imprisoned in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage, which he and the U.S. government have vehemently denied. His family said in a statement released by the newspaper that “we can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet, brave smile up close.” The newspaper’s executive editor, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyful day.”

“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as vocal as we could on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that rose up while his was silent. We can finally say with one voice, ‘Welcome home, Evan,'” she wrote in the letter posted online.

Also released were Whelan, a corporate security guard in Michigan who has been serving a sentence since 2018 on espionage charges that he and Washington deny, and Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, charges her family and employer deny.

The released dissidents included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years for treason widely seen as politically motivated, and numerous associates of Navalny. The released Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a human rights veteran convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

The Russian side got 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 on the orders of Moscow’s security services. During the negotiations, Moscow stubbornly pressed for his release, with Putin himself raising the issue.

MORE | How officials say Russian prisoner swap that freed Gershkovich and Whelan came about

At the time of Navalny’s death, officials were discussing a possible swap involving Krasikov. But after that prospect was quashed, senior U.S. officials, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, took new steps to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. Ultimately, a handful of prisoners released by Russia were German citizens or dual German-Russian citizens.

Russia has also taken back two alleged sleeper agents imprisoned in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence agent involved in supplying U.S. electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway has repatriated a scientist arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy; Poland has repatriated a man it detained on espionage charges.

“Today we have a powerful example of why it is so important to have friends in this world,” Biden said.

A total of six countries released at least one prisoner, while a seventh, Turkey, took part in the exchange, hosting the exchange in Ankara.

Biden put freeing Americans wrongfully detained abroad at the top of his foreign policy agenda six months before leaving office. In an Oval Office speech discussing his decision to withdraw from seeking a second term, Biden said, “We are also working around the clock to bring home Americans wrongfully detained around the world.”

At one point Thursday, he grabbed Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, by the hand and said she had been practically living in the White House while the administration tried to free Paul. Then he gestured for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer and took her by the hand, telling the crowd it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped tears from her eyes.

The Biden administration has brought home more than 70 Americans detained in other countries under deals that required the U.S. to extradite a wide range of convicted criminals, including those on drug and weapons charges. The swaps, while celebrated, have drawn criticism that they encourage future hostage-taking and give adversaries an advantage over the U.S. and its allies.

The U.S. government’s chief hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has tried to defend the accords by arguing that the number of Americans wrongly detained has actually declined even as the number of exchanges has increased.

Tucker, the Journal’s editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate, writing, “We know that the U.S. government is fully aware, as are we, that the only way to prevent the escalating cycle of innocent people being arrested as pawns in cynical geopolitical games is to deprive Russia and others of the incentive to engage in the same disgusting practices.”

Though she called for a change in dynamics, “for now,” she wrote, “we celebrate Evan’s return.”

Thursday’s exchange of 24 prisoners surpassed a 2010 deal that involved 14. Under that swap, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the U.S. as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal, a double agent who worked with British intelligence. He and his daughter were nearly killed in Britain in 2018 by a nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.

Speculation had been growing for weeks that the swap was imminent because of a series of circumstances, including Gershkovich’s surprisingly quick trial, which Washington dismissed as a farce. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.

In a trial that ended in secret over two days the same week as Gershkovich, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military that her family, employer and U.S. officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or for cooperating with Navalny have been moved from prison to undisclosed locations.

Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, during a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities said, without providing any evidence, that he was gathering classified information for the U.S. The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times before being hired by the Journal in 2022.

Gershkovich was found to have been falsely detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.

Whelan, who was serving a 16-year sentence, had been excluded from previous high-profile deals involving Russia, including Moscow’s April 2022 swap of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of a drug conspiracy. In December of that year, the U.S. freed notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was imprisoned on drug possession 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.

On a warm, muggy night, the freed Americans lingered on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, soaking up the moment of returning to the United States. They took selfies with family and friends, hugged Biden and Harris, patted loved ones on the back and showered them with kisses.

At one point, Biden handed Whelan a flag pin, which he pinned to his lapel.