US reporter Evan Gershkovich released by Russia in major prisoner exchange
Russia is releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan as part of a major prisoner swap with the US
Russia is releasing US reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan as part of a major prisoner swap with the US.
According to reports, the men are currently being transported to destinations outside of Russia. Under the prisoner swap agreement, the US and its allies will return prisoners they hold to Russia.
The Wall Street Journal writer could return to the US as early as Thursday, US media reported. Meanwhile, both the Kremlin and Washington are yet to confirmed the swap.
The new comes after a Russian court jailed the journalist on espionage charges which have been described by his employer and the US government as a ’sham’. Gershkovich, 32, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after a secretive and rapid trial in the country’s highly politicised legal system.
He was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the US. He has been behind bars ever since. The US State Department declared him “wrongfully detained,” a statement which commits officials to assertively seek his release.
In March, Secretary of state Anthony Blinken said: "Russia has provided no evidence of wrongdoing for a simple reason: Evan did nothing wrong."
"In the year since Evan’s wrongful detention, Russia’s already restrictive media landscape has become more oppressive, with a continued assault against independent voices targeting any form of dissent."
Whelan, 53, a corporate security director from Michigan, is serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted on spying charges that he and the US denied.
The swap may could include Russian-British activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, jailed in April last year, The Telegraph said. "The US has had Kara-Murza on their radar, but there are no guarantees," a parliamentarian said according to the newspaper, aslo saying a group of British MPs have been lobbying the government to secure Kara-Murza’s release.
The Mirror has approached the Foreign Office for clarification following today’s developments.
As speculation swirled over a Cold War style swap deal, a Russian Antonov An-148 aircraft - previously used in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout and WNBA star Brittney Griner - was spotted in Russian Baltic exclave Kaliningrad. The same plane - belonging to the feared FSB security service - has been involved in previous exchanges.
The plane flew in this morning from Vnukovo airport in Moscow. The Kaliningrad region borders NATO states Poland and Lithuania and also shares a frontier with Belarus, which is party to the complex prisoner exchange deal.
Later, another Russian plane previously used for exchanges with tail number RSD939 took off from Moscow bound for Ankara. The Tu-204-300 aircraft was previously in Turkey for the exchange of pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk for captured Azovstal defenders. Turkey was previously seen as a likely venue for the expected major prisoner swap between Russia and the West. The plane that previously landed in Kaliningrad later flew north towards the Russian Arctic city of Murmansk.
Following Gershokovich’s sentencing in July, President Joe Biden said Gershkovich had "endured his ordeal with remarkable strength".
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