Journalist Evan Gershkovich returns to US in Russia prisoner swap

Wall Avenue Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has returned to the US after greater than a yr in a Russian jail, as a part of a posh prisoner swap that was the most important of its variety because the chilly conflict.

Gershkovich, who was arrested final yr whereas on a reporting task in Russia, arrived late on Thursday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the place he was greeted by President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris, earlier than hugging his mom, Ella Milman.

His launch was secured as a part of an change in Ankara, Turkey, and concerned 26 prisoners and 7 international locations. It was the end result of months of painstaking diplomacy that additionally drew in Germany, Norway, Poland and Slovenia, in line with safety officers in a number of international locations. Turkish officers stated Belarus was additionally concerned.

“Alliances make a distinction,” Biden informed reporters on the airport on Thursday evening. “They stepped up.”

“It mattered so much.”

Russia launched 16 prisoners below the deal, together with Paul Whelan, a former US marine serving a sentence for espionage. Additionally launched was outstanding Russian dissident Ilya Yashin, in line with safety officers from the international locations concerned.

Biden stated the Russians free of inside Russia had been “political prisoners in their very own nation”.

US nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan hailed the change as “historic”, including: “Not because the chilly conflict has there been an analogous variety of people exchanged on this manner, and there has by no means, as far as we all know, been an change involving so many international locations.”

Russia additionally launched Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, a US-Russian twin citizen arrested final yr, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a UK-Russian twin nationwide and Washington Submit columnist serving a 25-year sentence for alleged treason and “discrediting the armed forces”. The Kremlin on Thursday issued a decree pardoning all these it had freed.

The Wall Avenue Journal stated: “Evan is free and on his manner house. He was launched right now in a multilateral prisoner change that happened in Ankara, Turkey . . . We’re overwhelmed with aid and elated for Evan and his household, in addition to for the others who had been launched.

“On the identical time, we condemn within the strongest phrases Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based mostly on sham accusations and a faux trial as a part of an all-out assault on the free press and fact.”

Dmitry Medvedev, a former stand-in president for Putin and deputy chair of Russia’s safety council, wrote in an obvious reference to the political prisoners that “[one wants] traitors to Russia to rot behind bars or kick the bucket in jail, as has occurred usually”.

“Nevertheless it’s extra helpful to get out our guys who labored for the nation, for the fatherland, for all of us,” he added. “Let the traitors feverishly select their new names and conceal within the witness safety programme.”

The swap additionally included German nationwide Rico Krieger, who had been detained in Belarus and sentenced to loss of life for an alleged sabotage try and was pardoned earlier this week, Turkish officers stated.

In return, a complete of 10 individuals, together with two kids, had been transferred from the west to Russia. They included Vadim Krasikov, a hitman convicted of a homicide in broad daylight in Berlin in 2021.

Prisoners who had been arrested by Norway, Poland and Slovenia for crimes together with espionage had been additionally returned to Russia.

Russia’s FSB safety service stated it had launched “a bunch of people performing within the pursuits of overseas states to the detriment of Russian safety” in change for the prisoners held in western international locations, in line with state newswire RIA Novosti. It cited a source as saying that Russia was “utterly happy” with the change and that each one sides had stored to their agreements in full.

Gershkovich, 32, was arrested in Ekaterinburg, a metropolis in Russia’s Ural Mountains, in March final yr. Moscow claimed to have caught him “red-handed” and stated it had “incontrovertible proof” that he was engaged in espionage, however by no means offered any proof in public, and the Wall Avenue Journal and US authorities dismissed the costs in opposition to him as baseless.

A court docket in Ekaterinburg sentenced him to 16 years in jail in July following a rushed three-day trial. Gershkovich reportedly denied the costs throughout his secret trial.

Russia detained a number of Individuals within the interval main as much as and instantly following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what was extensively seen as a hostage-taking technique aimed toward securing the discharge of the Kremlin’s operatives from jail within the west.

Turkey, a Nato member, has sought to place itself as a mediator between the west and Russia. Ankara refused to affix the US and EU sanctions regime in opposition to Moscow as a result of its conflict in Ukraine, together with by maintaining its airspace open to Russian plane.