The
United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet
history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and
fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir
Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Gershkovich,
Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship,
arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with
their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also
there to greet them and dispense hugs all around.
The
trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their
lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Negotiators in backchannel talks at one
point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny,
but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal
that required significant concessions from European allies, including the
release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of
journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
Biden
trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of swaps with Russia, as
a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the returning Americans to the
White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an innate
imbalance: The U.S. and allies gave up Russians charged 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 seen by
the West as trumped-up.
“Deals
like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said. He added, “There’s nothing
that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”
Under
the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal
who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and
the U.S. government 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 and brave smile up close.” The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker,
called it a “joyous day.”
“While
we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we could
be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised
when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she
wrote in a letter posted online.
Also
released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018,
also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied, and Kurmasheva, a
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist convicted in July of spreading false
information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer
have rejected.
The
dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer
Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as
politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of Navalny. Freed Kremlin
critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner 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.
Throughout the negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his
release, with Putin himself raising it.
At
the time of Navalny’s death, officials were discussing a possible exchange
involving Krasikov. But with that prospect erased, senior U.S. officials,
including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a fresh push to
encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a handful of the prisoners
Russia released were either German nationals or dual German-Russian nationals.
Russia
also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three
men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev, a
convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim
Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing
American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway
returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy; Poland sent
back a man it detained on espionage charges.
“Today
is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” Biden
said.
All
told, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh — Turkey —
participated by hosting the location for the swap, in Ankara.
Biden
placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the top of
his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In an
Oval Office address discussing his decision to drop his bid for a second term,
Biden said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being
unjustly detained all around the world.”
At
one point Thursday, he grabbed the hand of Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, and said
she’d practically been living at the White House as the administration tried to
free Paul. He then motioned for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer
and took her hand, telling the room it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone
to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped tears from her eyes.
The
Biden administration has now brought home more than 70 Americans detained in
other countries as part of deals that have required the U.S. to give up a broad
array of convicted criminals, including for drug and weapons offenses. The
swaps, though celebrated with fanfare, have spurred criticism that they
incentivize future hostage-taking and give adversaries leverage over the U.S.
and its allies.
The
U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has sought to defend
the deals by saying the number of wrongfully detained Americans has actually
gone down even as swaps have increased.
Tucker,
the Journal’s editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate, writing, “We know the
U.S. government is keenly aware, as are we, that the only way to prevent a
quickening cycle of arresting innocent people as pawns in cynical geopolitical
games is to remove the incentive for Russia and other nations that pursue the
same detestable practice.”
Though
she called for a change to the dynamic, “for now,” she wrote, “we are celebrating
the return of Evan.”
Thursday’s
swap of 24 prisoners surpassed a deal involving 14 people that was struck in
2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the U.S. as
sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal, a
double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018
were nearly killed in Britain by nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian
agents.
Speculation
had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual
developments, including a startlingly quick trial for Gershkovich, which
Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a
maximum-security prison.
In
a trial that concluded in two days in secrecy in the same week as
Gershkovich’s, 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 over their work with
Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.
Gershkovich
was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains
city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that
he was gathering secret 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
newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich
was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in
December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan,
who was serving a 16-year prison sentence, had been excluded from prior
high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of
imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian
pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy. That December, the U.S.
released notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star
Brittney Griner, who’d been jailed on drug 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 and steamy night, the freed Americans lingered on the tarmac at Joint
Base Andrews in Maryland, soaking up the moment of their return to the U.S.
They took selfies with family members and friends, shared hugs with Biden and
Harris, and patted loved ones on the back and smothered them with kisses.
At
one point, Biden gave Whelan the flag pin off his own lapel.