WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, ex-Marine Whelan released in U.S., Russia prisoner swap

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were released Thursday by Russia as part of a major, multinational swap of two dozen prisoners.

The Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and British-Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza also were freed as part of the swap.

“All four have been imprisoned unjustly in Russia,” President Joe Biden said in a televised address from the White House, where he was flanked by their family members.

Released with them were five German citizens and seven Russian citizens. All of those people, who were flown to Turkey as part of the negotiated exchange, had been in prison in Russia on charges that their home countries had strongly disputed the validity of.

Eight Russians, including the spy and convicted hitman Vadim Krasikov, are being returned to Russia from the United States, Slovenia, Norway, Poland and Germany.

The release of Krasikov, who had been held in Germany for murdering a former Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019, was key to getting Russia to agree to the swap, according to a Biden administration official.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva are U.S. citizens, while Kara-Murza is a permanent American resident.

“The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House, where the president planned to meet family members of the released Americans.

“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,” Biden said.

“Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan during a call with reporters, said, “Today’s exchange will be historic.”

“Not since the Cold War has there been a similar number of individuals exchanged in this way and there has never, so far as we know, been an exchange involving so many countries, so many close U.S. partners and allies working together,” Sullivan said.

“It’s the culmination of many rounds of complex, painstaking negotiations over many, many months.”

A small plane carrying Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland late Thursday evening. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris greeted the freed Americans on the tarmac alongside their family members.

Gershkovich, who was arrested in Russia in March 2023 on espionage charges, was sentenced in mid-July to 16 years in prison after a trial that the United States government has blasted as a sham. 

The journalist was convicted of collecting secret information about the activities of a defense enterprise for the production and repair of military equipment on instructions from U.S. intelligence services.

Whelan has been serving his own 16-year sentence for alleged espionage in Russia after being sentenced in 2020, two years after his arrest in Moscow.

The people being sent to Germany from Russian custody are: Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov and Sasha Skochilenko.

The people being sent to Russia, in addition to Krasikov, are: Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva, from Slovenia;  Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, from Norway; Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, from Poland; and Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin and Vadim Konoshchenock, from the United States.