MOSCOW: Jailed US Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-US Marine Paul Whelan were among two dozen detainees from the United States, Russia and a number of their allies freed on Thursday in the biggest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.

The White House said the US had negotiated the complex trade with Russia and other countries. It said eight prisoners held in the West were being sent back to Russia.

Germany confirmed that they included Vadim Krasikov, convicted of murdering an exiled dissident in Berlin.

Turkiye, which coordinated the exchange, said 10 prisoners, including two minors, had been moved to Russia, 13 to Germany and three to the United States. Also involved in the swap were Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus.

Americans Gershkovich and Whelan, Russian assassin Krasikov among those released

“After the completion of the ratification procedures of the parties, the health checks … the prisoners were placed on the planes of the countries to which they would be travelling with the approval and instructions of the MIT,” the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) said in a statement. It said it had authorised the return of the aircraft.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not specifically confirm a swap but was quoted by the state news agency TASS as saying that, in principle, “all our enemies should stay there (abroad), and all those who are not our enemies should return”.

In the last major exchange in 2010, 14 prisoners were exchanged.

In December 2022, Russia traded US basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years for having vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage, for arms dealer Viktor Bout, serving a 25-year sentence in the US.

Krasikov is a colonel in the Russian FSB security service who was serving a life sentence in Germany for murdering an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park. President Vladimir Putin had indicated he wanted him back.

Rico Krieger, a German sentenced to death in Belarus on terrorism charges, was pardoned on Tuesday by President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally. He was also among those released, along with Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, Turkey said.

Russian dissidents

Reuters footage showed a Russian government plane on the ground in the Turkish capital Ankara.

Whelan and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both jailed in Russia, had suddenly disappeared from view in recent days, according to their lawyers. At least seven Russian dissidents had been unexpectedly moved from their prisons.

A lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian held in the United States, declined on Wednesday to confirm the whereabouts of his client to the state RIA news agency “until the exchange takes place”.

RIA had also reported that four Russians jailed in the United States had disappeared from a database of prisoners operated by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. It named them as Vinnik, Maxim Marc­henko, Vadim Konoshc­henok and Vladislav Klyushin.

Dissidents inside Russia whose supporters say they have been told that they have been suddenly moved in recent days include human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Daniil Krinari, convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments.

In the West, the dissidents are seen by governments and activists as wrongfully detained political prisoners. All have been designated by Moscow as dangerous extremists.

A Slovenian court on Wednesday sentenced two Russians to time served for espionage and using fake identities, and said they would be deported.

WSJ Editor in Chief Emma Tucker posted an open letter on X platform: “Today is a joyous day for the safe return of our colleague Evan Gershkovich, who left a Russian aircraft moments ago in Turkiye’s capital, Ankara, as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.”

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2024