Pinned
President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters on the tarmac shortly after the arrival of the three freed Americans, said the “toughest call” on the prisoner swap deal was not made by the United States, but by its allies.
“I asked them to do some things that were against their immediate self interest … particularly Germany and Slovenia,” he said shortly after midnight, going into Aug. 2.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, and Marine veteran Paul Whelan landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 11:45 p.m. ET.
The freed Americans were greeted on the tarmac by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, along with their loved ones.
They were released from Russia earlier on Aug. 1 and then flew to Ankara, Turkey, before boarding another flight to the United States.
“We have waited 491 days for Evan’s release, and it’s hard to describe what today feels like,” Evan Gershkovich’s family said in a statement they shared with The Wall Street Journal.
“We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close. Most important now is taking care of Evan and being together again. No family should have to go through this, and so we share relief and joy today with Paul and Alsu’s families.”
Evan’s mother Ella Milman, father Mikhail Gershkovich, and sister Danielle Gershkovich thanked President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for their part in his release, along with the U.S. and foreign government officials who worked behind the scenes to help finalize the deal.
Vice President Kamala Harris joined in celebrating the return of three Americans and a U.S. green card holder.
In remarks to the press before boarding Air Force Two, Harris said the former prisoners and their families “have shown incredible courage.”
“Russian authorities arrested and convicted them in sham trials and sentenced them to long prison time. It has been an appalling perversion of justice,” she said.
Russian authorities detained American Paul Whelan in December 2018 on espionage charges. A Russian court found him guilty and sentenced him in June 2020 to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony after a closed-door trial.
Evan Gershkovich was also detained in March 2023 on allegations of spying on a Russian tank production and repair facility. In his last article for The Wall Street Journal, published the day before his arrest, Gershkovich pointed to signs that Russia’s economy was faltering as it worked to boost production of military equipment for the war in Ukraine.
A Russian court found Gershkovich guilty last month after a closed-door trial and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) praised the Biden administration for working to include jailed Russian dissidents in the prisoner exchange deal.
“It speaks to a very smart policy by this administration, to of course prioritize Americans, but also realize that we can't stand up for democracy globally if we aren't supporting those freedom fighters,” Murphy told The Epoch Times on Thursday.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said he was happy to hear Americans would be returned on Thursday, but cautioned that the prisoner exchange could incentivize America’s geopolitical rivals.
U.S. allies praised the successful negotiation of the prisoner swap, and acknowledged their part in helping to orchestrate it.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre said that the exchange was only possible due to the “extensive international cooperation” of close allies.
“For the Norwegian authorities, it has been important to contribute in such cooperation with our close allies,” he said. “A close collaboration across several countries has made this possible.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the prisoner exchange does not form the basis for negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, another issue that has divided Moscow and Washington.
“We do not see a link between the hostage negotiation, or the detained-persons negotiations, and any potential diplomacy of the war in Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
Sullivan said the Biden administration will continue to support Ukraine and follow its lead on negotiating an end to that war.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the sweeping prisoner swap was originally intended to include Russian dissident and long-time Putin opponent Alexsei Navalny.
Navalny died suddenly under mysterious circumstances at a Russian prison in the Arctic earlier this year. Sullivan said he spoke to the family of Navalny on the day of his death.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced that Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva will arrive “later tonight” to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Sullivan said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be at the Air Force Base to greet them.
Sullivan said the president expects to be able to meet with Vladimir Kara-Murza and his family at a later date.
The office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that it was not an easy decision to free Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin convicted of killing a Chechen dissident in Berlin in 2019.
Scholz’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, said in a statement Thursday that the release of 15 people held “wrongfully” in Russia and a German held in Belarus could only be achieved by deporting Russians “with an intelligence background” held in Europe such as Krasikov.
He added that “our obligation to protect German citizens and solidarity with the United States were important motivations” to agreeing with the deal.
The United States, Russia, and other nations on Aug. 1 completed the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. Twenty-four people were freed in the latest prisoner swap. Here’s what we know:
- Three Americans and one U.S. green card holder have been released from Russia as part of a historic prisoner swap.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said during a press briefing that the prisoner swap was tangible evidence that the Biden administration’s emphasis on building international alliances was bearing real fruit.
“There is no more singular or concrete demonstration that the alliances that the president has reinvigorated around the world matter to Americans, to the individual safety of Americans and to the collective security of Americans,” Sullivan said.
“Today was a very big day, and we’re going to build on it, drawing inspiration and continued courage from it for all of those who are held hostage or wrongfully detained around the world. And that includes Marc Fogel, who we are actively working to get his release from Russia as well.”
Imprisoned American citizen Marc Fogel was not among those released from Russia in the prisoner exchange. His exclusion from the deal has drawn the concern of some in Congress.
Earlier in the day, Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey (D-Md.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) issued a joint statement saying that Fogel was “unjustly imprisoned” and calling on the Biden administration to ensure “that any potential prisoner swap include Marc Fogel.”
Fogel was arrested in Russia in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug trafficking. At the time of his arrest, he possessed less than one ounce of marijuana, which was prescribed to him by his doctor in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial leadership has maintained journalist Evan Gershkovich’s innocence and advocated for his release since his arrest last March. On Aug. 1, they celebrated his release.
“This is a day of great joy and relief for Evan, his family, WSJ colleagues, and all those who campaigned so hard for his release. It is also a great day for press freedom,” Wall Street Journal Editor in Cheif Emma Tucker wrote in a social media post.
Almar Latour, the CEO of Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, also joined in the celebration and thanked those who supported Gershkovich’s cause.
President Joe Biden said during a press conference Thursday that the freed Americans will soon be “wheels up on their way home to see their families” from Turkey.
He reiterated that the complex effort relied upon the cooperation of allied nations and it underscored the importance of maintaining strong international partnerships to ensure such deals continue to be brokered.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the deal to get Russia to release 16 prisoners followed “the extraordinary efforts of countless people in the State Department and across our government.”
“Through many difficult conversations over the past several years, I told the families of those wrongfully detained in Russia that we would not forget them,” Blinken said in a Thursday press statement.
“I know there are many times over those years where they have wondered if our work would ever bear fruit. But I also know that they never gave up hope, and neither did we.”
Thursday’s prisoner exchange played out in a multi-party swap, in which Russian authorities agreed to release five German nationals and seven Russian nationals to Germany.
The 12 prisoners Russia turned over to Germany include: Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Sasha Skochilenko.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian-British dissident and has been a contributing columnist at the Washington Post. He has been critical of the Putin government and its decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian authorities detained Kara-Murza in April 2022 on charges of working to discredit the Russian military, and charged him in October 2022 with high treason, according to state media.
Kara-Murza continued to contribute columns to the Washington Post while in Russian custody. The newspaper celebrated his release in a social media message on Thursday by sharing his collection of writings.
In exchange for its release of journalists and activists, Russia is receiving from Western nations an assassin and several spies and cybercriminals. They include:
Artem and Anna Dultsev, a Russian spy couple who pleaded guilty to espionage charges in Slovenia where they claimed to be art dealers.
Vladislav Klyushin, who was convicted of hacking U.S. companies and using the ill-gotten information to conduct stock market trades.
President Joe Biden released a statement confirming that three American citizens and one U.S. Green Card holder were among those released from Russia in a prisoner exchange completed on Aug. 1.
In addition to former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza were released.
In all, Biden said that the United States negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners.
3 Americans Released as Part of Multination Prisoner Swap
WASHINGTON—Three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan, and one American permanent resident are being released as part of a historic prisoner swap between Russia, the United States, and several other nations.The United States and others negotiated the release of 16 prisoners from Russia, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners, according to President Joe Biden. The other Americans released were Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
“Our organization has undertaken a major mediation role in this exchange operation, which is the most comprehensive of the recent period,” the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) said in a statement.
Flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed that a special Russian government plane used for a previous prisoner swap involving the United States and Russia had flown from Moscow to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania, before heading back to the Russian capital.
The Americans Gershkovich and Whelan were imprisoned in Russia under dubious circumstances, with Russia accusing Gershkovich and Whelan of being spies.
The exchange is part of a larger, 26-person prisoner swap between the United States, Germany, Norway, Poland, and Slovenia on one side, and Russia and Belarus on the other, with Turkey acting as an intermediary between the two sides.
For its part, Russia is expected to receive eight prisoners of its own back, including some with ties to Russian intelligence.
Among them is Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted of murder in Germany in 2019, which the judges in his case described as an assassination ordered by Russian authorities.
Vinnik previously pleaded guilty to money laundering in a case related to the unlawful use of $4 billion in cryptocurrency at the BTC-e exchange, for which he oversaw finances.
That same firm handled Bitcoin transactions for Fancy Bear, a Russian hacking group possibly connected to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence arm, and which was believed to be behind cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2015 and 2016 and later hacks on the Ukrainian military.
Russian state media reported that Vinnik was among four Russians jailed in the United States who disappeared from a database of prisoners operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.
It named the other three as Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenok, and Vladislav Klyushin.
Klyushin, like Vinnik, was also associated with co-conspirators that the Justice department described as being involved in “a scheme to interfere with the 2016 United States elections.”