Russia frees Gershkovich in biggest prisoner swap since cold war

The largest prisoner swap between Russia and the US since the cold war took place yesterday, with 16 people freed from Russian custody including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, several foreign citizens and Russian political prisoners.

- Shaun Walker

The exchange took place at Ankara airport in a complicated operation in which planes arrived from and departed to various countries.

Among those returning to Russia was the assassin Vadim Krasikov, who has been held in a German prison since 2019 for the murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin. Several deep-cover Russian "illegal" spies arrested in Norway and Slovenia were swapped, along with Russians held on criminal charges in the US.

In total, 16 people were freed from Russian and Belarusian jails, and eight Russians returned home. Two minors were sent to Russia, believed to be the children of the couple jailed in Slovenia.

The former US marine Paul Whelan and the journalist and joint US Russian citizen Alsu Kurmasheva were released by Russia. The Russian-opposition politician Ilya Yashin and several other opposition figures were also freed, including the British-Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza and three people who had worked as regional coordinators for the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February.

The deal had involved months of negotiations between various countries and came together in extreme secrecy, with the location and exact makeup of the exchange not made public until the last moment. The US was working for months to try to free Gershkovich, arrested in March 2023 while reporting in the city of Ekaterinburg and sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage last month.

He pleaded not guilty, and the Wall Street Journal and US government rejected the allegations.