Sixteen prisoners have been released from Russian prisons in the biggest exchange deal between Russia and the West since the Cold War. US President Joe Biden confirmed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and US Marine veteran Paul Whelan are among those on their way back to the US.
According to Turkey, which said it had facilitated and hosted the swap earlier on Thursday, eight Russians held in American and European jails were returned in exchange. They were held in the US, Norway, Slovenia, Poland and Germany and include several people with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.
A White House statement confirmed Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza were also released by Russia and will return to the US. Mr Biden said: “The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy. 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.” German citizen Rico Krieger, sentenced to death in Belarus then pardoned by President Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian political prisoner Ilya Yashin were also on the list, Turkey said.
Moscow has not publicly commented on the deal, but it is expected that eight Russian prisoners will return home as part of the swap. One of them is Vadim Krasikov, identified by German officials as a colonel in Russia’s FSB intelligence service, who is serving a life sentence for the 2019 murder of a Kremlin opponent in a Berlin Park.
The Turkish presidency said that all the prisoners were taken off aircraft at Ankara airport, moved to secure locations under the supervision of Turkish security officials, then put on planes for their respective destination countries. The exchange comes after days of speculation about a major swap between various countries, which increased after several dissidents and journalists jailed in Russia were moved from their prison cells to unknown locations.
These include veteran human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov, who is also thought to be among those released. Although secret prison transfers are common in Russia, the multiple “disappearance” of well-known prisoners was unusual.
The last high-profile prisoner swap took place in December 2022, when US basketball star Brittney Griner was exchanged on the tarmac at Abu Dhabi airport for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been held in an American prison for 12 years. The last comparable one occurred in Vienna in 2010, when 10 Russian spies held in the US were swapped for four alleged double agents held in Russia.
One of them was Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer, later poisoned by nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury in 2018. Tensions between Moscow and the West have been high in recent years, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.