Moscow, Russia has released Ivan Gershkovich, an American journalist, and Paul Whalen, a former US Marine, as part of a prisoner exchange deal involving several countries. In return, 26 prisoners were released on Thursday.
Apart from this, two Russian prisoners were also released on espionage charges. According to news agency Reuters, the prisoner deal is the largest exchange between Russia and the US in post-Soviet history. The deal took place in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Apart from the US and Russia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus were also part of the swap deal.
According to Turkish officials, 10 prisoners, including two minors, were taken to Russia, 13 to Germany and three to America.
Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Russia, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges. The US government denied this. He was later sentenced to 16 years in a high-security Russian prison. The Wall Street Journal said in a statement that he was facing “false and baseless charges.”
President Joe Biden called Gershkovich's detention 'absolutely illegal'. Whalen, a former Marine from Michigan who worked as a corporate security executive, was detained in Moscow in 2018 and indicted on espionage charges. He was serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison. Whalen and the US government have denied he was a spy. The US declared them 'wrongfully detained'.
Thursday's swap also included Russian FSB security service colonel Vadim Kasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for killing an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park. President Vladimir Putin had previously expressed his desire to repatriate him to Russia.
Two Russian prisoners convicted by Slovenia's espionage court were among more than two dozen freed on Thursday (Aug 1) in the biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War.
Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerievna Dultseva were sentenced to one year and seven months in prison at a secret hearing on Wednesday (31 July). He was convicted on charges of espionage and using a fake identity.SS1MS
