Gershkovich in first comments after arriving in the US supports Russian dissidents

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has come out in defense of dissidents held in Russian prisons, his first public comment on U.S. soil since his release in a prisoner swap.

“I would like to say one thing. It was great to get on the bus today and see not only Americans and Germans but also Russian political prisoners,” Gershkovich said in a brief conversation with Andrew Roth, a reporter for The Guardian, as he stepped off the plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

“I just spent a month in a Yekaterinburg prison, where almost everyone I was incarcerated with was a political prisoner,” he added.

Seven Russian citizens, including four who worked with the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny, were among 24 people freed in a major international prisoner swap on Thursday. They were imprisoned in their own countries and released to the West.

Of the dissidents he met behind bars, Gershkovich said that no one knew them publicly, but they had different political views. “Not all of them are Navalny supporters,” he added.

“Today was a really emotional moment… but it would be good to see if we can do something with them,” he said.

President Joe Biden called the deal “a feat of diplomacy and friendship.” It was struck by seven nations and involved 24 people, including five Germans and seven Russians held in Russia and eight Russians imprisoned in the U.S., Germany, Slovenia, Norway and Poland.

The exchange took place in Turkey, and the plane carrying Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., landed in Maryland at 11:38 p.m.

After welcoming them, Biden, in his address to the nation, addressed directly the Russian citizens released under the deal.

“They stood up for democracy and human rights, their own leaders threw them in jail. The United States also helped secure their release,” he said.

Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 and held for more than five years and who was not involved in two previous prisoner exchanges, called his return to the U.S. “a good homecoming.”

“Getting off the plane, seeing the president, the vice president, it was nice,” Whelan said. “I can’t wait to see my family here and recover from five years, seven months and five days of absolute nonsense from the Russian government.”

He thanked his supporters, saying he had received thousands of letters and cards, “so many that the FSB stopped sending them to me.”

Whelan, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison, called the allegations made against him by the Russian government “a nonsensical narrative that they made up and just wouldn’t let go.”

“This is how Putin runs his government. This is how Putin runs his country,” he added.

“I’m glad to be home,” he said. “I’ll never go back there.”

In Moscow the difference could not have been more obvious.

At the Vnukovo-2 airport in the Russian capital, the killer, cybercriminals and other people imprisoned for espionage were given a big hug and a hug and a few words from a gloomy President Vladimir Putin.

“I would like to thank you for your loyalty to your oath, duty and your homeland, which has not forgotten you for a moment,” he said.

Putin also welcomed a family of spies who posed as Argentine citizens while living in Slovenia before being detained there. Artem and Anna Dultseva were convicted in a closed trial in a court in the capital, Ljubljana, on Wednesday after pleading guilty to espionage charges.

The couple posed as Argentine citizens Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Muños and settled in Slovenia in 2017. Their two children attended an international school in Ljubljana, local media reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, calling the couple “illegal intelligence officers,” said on Friday that Putin spoke to the children in Spanish.

“When the kids were on the plane — they didn’t speak Russian — Putin just greeted them in Spanish. He said, ‘Buenas noches.'”

He added that they found out they were Russians only on the plane taking them to Moscow.

“Yesterday they asked their parents who the guy was who was meeting them. They didn’t even know who Putin was,” Peskov said.