The deal’s first phase required concessions from other countries, with seven nations agreeing to give up 24 prisoners.
The Associated Press and WIN Staff
The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing Jewish journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan and Jewish dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place.
The trade followed years of secretive back-channel negotiations 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.
Evan Gershkovich is a Wall Street Journal reporter who was accused of spying and arrested in March 2023. The Federal Security Service alleged he was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets but provided no evidence to support the accusation. Washington designated him as wrongfully detained.
The deal was the latest in a series of prisoner swaps negotiated between Russia and the U.S. in the past two years, but the first to require significant concessions from other countries, with seven nations agreeing to give up 24 prisoners.
The White House for the first time flew a flag to raise awareness of Americans who are wrongfully detained.
The flag symbolizes other Americans who continue to be held hostage or are wrongfully detained abroad, according to the White House.
It underscores the administration’s “enduring commitment to ensuring the safety and security of our fellow Americans, and our sacred vow to continue working tirelessly until every American is accounted for and returns safely back home.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy welcomed the prisoner swap between Russia and the West that brought the release of two British nationals, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Paul Whelan.
Lammy said Kara-Murza is “a dedicated opponent of Putin’s regime. He should never have been in prison in the first place: the Russian authorities imprisoned him in life-threatening conditions because he courageously told the truth about the war in Ukraine. I pay tribute to his family’s courage in the face of such hardship and hope to speak to him soon.”
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