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Russia released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on Thursday as part of a complex prisoner swap with the US and other countries that was the largest of its kind since the cold war.
The exchange in Ankara, which involved 26 prisoners and seven countries, was the culmination of many months of painstaking diplomacy after President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The talks also drew in Germany, Norway, Poland and Slovenia, according to security officials in multiple countries, while Turkish officials said Belarus was also involved.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan called the exchange “historic”, adding: “Not since the cold war has there been a similar number of individuals exchanged in this way, and there has never, so far as we know, been an exchange involving so many countries.”
US President Joe Biden said: “All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia — including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”
Russia released 16 prisoners including Gershkovich, who had been convicted on spying charges, and Paul Whelan, a former US marine serving a sentence for espionage.
Other individuals released included prominent Russian dissident Ilya Yashin, according to security officials from countries involved.
The Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich’s employer, said: “Evan is free and on his way home. He was released today in a multilateral prisoner exchange that took place in Ankara, Turkey . . . We are overwhelmed with relief and elated for Evan and his family, as well as for the others who were released.
“At the same time, we condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations and a fake trial as part of an all-out assault on the free press and truth.”
Russia also released Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, a US-Russian dual citizen arrested last year, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a UK-Russian dual national and Washington Post columnist serving a 25-year sentence for alleged treason and “discrediting the armed forces”.
The swap also included German national Rico Krieger, who had been detained in Belarus and sentenced to death for an alleged sabotage attempt and was pardoned earlier this week, Turkish officials said.
In return, a total of 10 people, including two children, were transferred from the west to Russia. They included Vadim Krasikov, a hitman convicted of a murder in broad daylight in Berlin in 2021.
Prisoners who had been arrested by Norway, Poland, and Slovenia for crimes including espionage were also returned to Russia.
Biden will meet the families of Gershkovich, Whelan, Kurmasheva and Kara-Murza on Thursday at the White House.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested while on a reporting assignment in Ekaterinburg, a city in Russia’s Ural Mountains, in March last year and was later convicted of espionage. The Wall Street Journal and the US government said the charges were baseless.
Russia claimed to have caught Gershkovich “red-handed” when he was arrested in an Ekaterinburg café and said it had “incontrovertible proof” of his guilt, but never provided any evidence in public.
A court in Ekaterinburg sentenced the reporter to 16 years in prison in July following a rushed three-day trial. Gershkovich reportedly denied the charges during his secret trial.
Russia detained several Americans in the period leading up to and immediately following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what was widely seen as a hostage-taking strategy aimed at securing the release of the Kremlin’s operatives from prison in the west.
Turkey, a Nato member, has sought to position itself as a mediator between the west and Russia. Ankara refused to join the US and EU sanctions regime against Moscow due to its war in Ukraine, including by keeping its airspace open to Russian aircraft.