The United States and Russia on Thursday completed their largest prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history, with Moscow releasing journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, along with fellow American Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that freed more than 20 people.
The exchange came after years of secret negotiations through back channels despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at an all-time low following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The convictions of Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Kurmashevafrom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a media outlet of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), under which the Voice of America; had been denounced as a “farce” by several international press organizations.
“Just moments ago, the families (of those released) and I were able to speak with them by phone from the Oval Office. They flew to Turkey earlier today and will soon be taking off on their way home to see their families. It’s an incredible relief,” US President Joe Biden told reporters, accompanied by relatives of the released prisoners, including Kurmasheva’s two daughters. The president sang happy birthday to the youngest daughter during the press conference.
Biden said the release of these people “was a feat of diplomacy and friendship” and thanked the US allies who supported the “difficult and complex” negotiations to achieve this result, including Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey.
The historic exchange resulted in the release of 16 prisoners: four Americans, five Germans and seven Russian citizens “political prisoners in their own country,” the president said.
“This is a powerful example of why it is vital to have friends in this world who can be trusted and depended on. Our alliances make Americans safer,” Biden had insisted earlier in a statement. release released by the White House.
Asked by reporters about a possible dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden said he “did not need to talk” with him and assured that his administration would continue to do everything possible to bring back all Americans unjustly detained abroad.
The sweeping deal, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps brokered between Washington and Moscow over the past two years but the first to require significant concessions from other countries, has come at a price: Russia has secured the freedom of its own citizens convicted of serious crimes in the West by swapping them for Western journalists, dissidents and other Westerners convicted and sentenced in a highly politicized legal system on charges the U.S. considers trumped-up.
Turkish intelligence officials had already announced shortly before that Ankara was coordinating a large-scale prisoner exchange, amid indications of a major swap between Russia and Belarus on the one hand and the United States, Germany and Slovenia on the other.
“A prisoner exchange operation will be carried out today under the coordination of our organization,” the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) said in a statement.
“Our organization has assumed an important mediation role in this exchange operation, which is the most comprehensive in recent times.”
Russia has long been interested in bringing back Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of murdering a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services.
Speculation about a possible prisoner swap had been mounting for weeks due to a confluence of unusual events, including a surprisingly quick trial and conviction for Gershkovich that Washington considered a sham. sentenced to 16 years in prison in a maximum security prison.
[Con información de The Associated Press, Reuters]
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