Russia has released Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. The two men, who were previously convicted of espionage in Russia, are already on their way to freedom, Bloomberg has learned from sources who asked not to be identified.
It is not yet known who or what the US returned to the Russians as part of the prisoner swap. However, it is worth noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously stated that he wants to return Vadim Kratikov, the FSB assassin imprisoned in Germany.
Moscow correspondent for the American business and political daily The Wall Street Journal Arrested in March 2023 On charges of espionage by the FSB. The man, the newspaper, and America all denied this.
The United States announced in July that the State Department's top priority was to free Ivan Gershkovich. The man is a Russian court He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in mid-July. After a fairly short trial. Even then, there was speculation that they might rush the verdict because they wanted to use the American reporter in a prisoner exchange, in which only convicted persons could participate.
The exchange could be beneficial for US President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration later on. They found themselves in a delicate internal political situation. In recent weeks, the Kremlin has indicated that since its citizens are behind bars in various Western countries, their release is a complex and delicate process that the Kremlin does not want to entrust to Donald Trump if he wins the US presidential election in the fall. Politico.
Putin was also interested in a pre-election deal, because then the painstaking preparatory work involving several countries could have been lost, political analyst Tatyana Sztanovaya predicted. Trump had previously boasted that if elected, he would secure Gerskovitch’s release without giving the Russians anything in return. That would certainly have been a worse option for Moscow.
According to Politico, several high-profile Russian nationals held in U.S. prisons have been removed from the U.S. federal prison database. Among them were
- Maxim Marchenko,
- Vadim Konochinok,
- Vladislav Klyushin,
- Roman Seleznev
- And Alexander Vinnik.
The exchange of prisoners is not unknown between the two countries.
Vladimir put it in Russian leader He did a great interview in February. To Tucker Carlson, who hinted that this would be the way he would release Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, but, a week and a half later, under unclear circumstances He died in a Siberian prison.
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Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova/Bloomberg
