High-profile people held prisoner in Russia – including British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza and US reporter Evan Gershkovich – have been freed as part of a massive prisoner swap which has been hailed by President Joe Biden as a “feat of diplomacy”.
Some two dozen people from countries including Russia, the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus were involved in the biggest such exchange since the Cold War.
Former US Marine Paul Whelan was also among those freed by Russia.
While Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin, was among those released from Western prisons in exchange.
Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan celebrate their freedom. Pic: US Government/Reuters
‘Brutal ordeal is over’
President Biden said American detainees’ “brutal ordeal is over” as he hailed their release as a “feat of diplomacy” involving multiple countries – as well as an “incredible relief” for families.
As Mr Biden made his statement at the White House, he was joined by relatives of the freed Americans.
The president and the families spoke to the freed prisoners from the Oval Office just minutes before his address, Mr Biden said.
Mr Biden hailed the release of the prisoners as a ‘feat of diplomacy’
Mr Biden, who recently withdrew from the presidential race to endorse his vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee in November’s election, said the work to bring home those wrongfully detained began during his transition into the presidency almost four years ago.
And he said his administration has brought home 70 Americans, many of whom had been held since before he took office.
Ms Harris said the country was celebrating the release of those “unjustly held in Russia”.
She said the news gave her “great comfort,” before adding in a statement that Mr Biden’s administration would not stop working until every wrongfully detained American saw freedom.
Russia and the West have a long history of prisoner swaps
The exchange on Thursday has been billed as the biggest since the Cold War – a time when tit-for-tat trading of captured spies, agents and innocent citizens, caught on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was commonplace.
A well-known location for spy swaps was the Glienicke bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam in what was East Germany.
It was the site of a 1962 exchange – depicted in the move Bridge of Spies – between KGB colonel Rudolf Abel and Gary Powers, the pilot of an American spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean an end in the trade of captured spies and other citizens.
The last significant swap in the post-Cold War era was in 2010 on the tarmac of the international airport in Vienna, when 10 Russian spies, including Anna Chapman – detained by the United States – were exchanged for four people released by Russia, including Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, an MI6 operative.
Eight years later, Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the cathedral city of Salisbury in a botched assassination attempt carried out by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Ankara, the Turkish capital, was chosen as the location for the latest swap.
The biggest known spy swap between the eastern bloc and western powers took place in 1985 after a three-year period of talks. It involved 25 people imprisoned in East Germany who were exchanged for four East Europeans held by the allies.
The complex trade was negotiated with Russia and several other countries in secret for more than a year and represents a major accomplishment for the parties and will be presented by the Biden administration as a marquee foreign policy success in an election year.
Those being freed from Russian custody are:
Mr Kara-Murza, Mr Gershkovich, Mr Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, 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.
Those being freed from Western prisons are:
Krasikov, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, Anna Valerevna Dultseva, Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin and Vadim Konoshchenock.
Read more:
Trump and Zelenskyy have ‘very good phone call’
First F-16 jets arrive in Ukraine
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Who are the prisoners released from Russian imprisonment?
Evan Gershkovich
Evan Gershkovich. File pic: Reuters
US journalist Gershkovich was first arrested and detained in March 2023 after Russia claimed he had been “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA.
President Biden previously said the Wall Street Journal reporter had been “targeted” and that they were “pushing hard” for his release.
Russian prosecutors alleged he had gathered secret information on the orders of the CIA about a company that manufactures tanks for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Mr Gershkovich, 32, said the charges against him were false and his employer called the case a sham.
He was jailed for 16 years earlier this month after being convicted of espionage in a trial widely seen as politically motivated.
In a letter, Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker said it was a “joyous day” after the release of her reporter.
She added: “That it was done in a trade for Russian operatives guilty of serious crimes was predictable as the only solution given President Putin’s cynicism.”
Paul Whelan
Former US Marine Paul Whelan. File pic: Reuters
A former US marine, Paul Whelan has been in custody in Russia since he was arrested in a Moscow hotel room on 28 December 2018.
Police said they caught him “red-handed” with a computer memory stick containing a list of secret Russian agents.
He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison.
Mr Whelan, who also holds British citizenship, had pleaded not guilty, claiming he was set up by a sting operation and that he had been given the USB drive by someone else, thinking it only contained holiday photos.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Vladimir Kara-Murza gestures as he appears in court last year. Pic: AP
A dual UK-Russian citizen, Vladimir Kara-Murza has been held in a penal colony in the Siberian city of Omsk on treason charges he says are politically motivated.
The opposition politician was jailed for 25 years on charges after making public remarks which were critical of the Kremlin.
His arrest in April 2022, weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, came as authorities ratcheted up their crackdown on dissent to levels unseen since Soviet times.
Mr Kara-Murza’s wife and lawyers have repeatedly sounded the alarm about his health deteriorating in prison.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Vadim Ostanin
An associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Mr Ostanin was convicted on extremism charges in July last year.
He was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony after being found guilty of organising an extremist community and belonging to a non-profit that “infringes on citizens’ rights,” Mr Navalny’s team said at the time.
Mr Ostanin was detained in November 2021, several months after Mr Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his regional offices were labelled as “extremist organisations” by the Russian government.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the exchange are Russian citizens held in prisons in the West.
Vadim Krasikov
Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov is being freed as part of the exchange. Pic: Reuters
Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov is serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.
German judges said he acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport and the resources to carry out the killing.
The killing and subsequent sentencing triggered a major diplomatic row between Russia and Germany, including tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.
