U.S., Russia prisoner swap secures release of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and others

After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all of whom are expected to arrive on American soil by nightfall. 

The three will return to the United States as part of a 24-person prisoner swap — one of the largest since the end of the Cold War — among the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other Western countries. 

The deal is a significant and hard-fought win for the Biden administration, which has secured the release of more than 60 hostages or wrongful detainees from around the world over the past three years. Few cases have received a similar level of prominence or scrutiny as the ones in Russia, a longstanding geopolitical rival of the U.S. with a history of taking — and trading — foreign detainees. 

“All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over,” President Biden said in a statement.  

Under the terms of the agreement, 12 political dissidents held in Russia have been released to Germany. Kremlin critic and Washington Post contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza is expected to be flown to Germany, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. Kara-Murza is a British-Russian citizen and a green card holder. His family lives in the U.S.

In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were being held in U.S. prisons: Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznyov.

Two Russians held in Slovenia, one in Poland and another in Norway are also headed home. All have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence, according to U.S. officials.

Key among the prisoners returned to Russia, according to American officials familiar with the talks, was Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison by a German court in 2021 for killing a Georgian asylee who had fought against Russians in Chechnya. German judges said the killing had been ordered by Russian federal authorities and called it “state terrorism.”

Details of the deal, which was coordinated over more than half a year by multiple U.S. government agencies including the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, were closely held, though speculation about the swap had mounted in recent days after prominent Russian political prisoners, including Kara-Murza, were moved from their respective jails in Russia. 

The painstakingly choreographed exchange, apparently one of the most complex in history, finally took place on Thursday on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey.

Russia imprisons Americans

Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was taken into Russian custody while on assignment in Yekaterinburg in March of 2023. Russian authorities charged him with espionage, drawing immediate condemnation from the U.S. government, which in April of that year officially determined Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained.

Over a year later, in early July 2024, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Russian court. The U.S. called his hurried trial “a sham.”

On Thursday, Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor in chief Emma Tucker said, “We are overwhelmed with relief and elated for Evan and his family, as well as for the others who were released. At the same time, we condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations.”

Whelan, a Marine veteran and the longest-held American detainee in Russia, was arrested in December 2018 when he traveled to the country to attend a friend’s wedding. He was also charged with espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020. 

Whelan, his family and the U.S. government consistently denied the espionage allegations against him and said he was being used as a political pawn. The U.S. government also declared him wrongfully detained.

“Paul was held hostage for 2,043 days. His case was that of an American in peril, held by the Russian Federation as part of their blighted initiative to use humans as pawns to extract concessions,” the Whelan family wrote in a statement Thursday. “Paul Whelan is free.”

Kurmasheva, a journalist based in Prague for the U.S-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who holds dual Russian and American citizenship, was detained in June of 2023, after visiting her mother in May. Russian authorities charged her with disseminating false information about Russia’s military before sentencing her to six and a half years in prison in a hurried, secret trial in July of this year.  

Pavel Butorin, Kurmasheva’s husband, said Thursday, “After over a year of separation and more than nine months of brutal detention, Alsu will finally be free. Thanks to the unwavering efforts of the U.S. government and our tireless advocacy work, she will soon reunite with her family.”

Unlike Whelan and Gershkovich, Kurmasheva was not officially deemed wrongfully detained by the U.S., but Mr. Biden publicly called for her release at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April 2024. 

Not all Americans currently imprisoned in Russia were involved in the swap. American teacher Marc Fogel, musician Michael Travis Leake, U.S. Army staff sergeant Gordon Black, and Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina remain imprisoned, among others.

Negotiating the deal

Soon after American WNBA star Brittney Griner was released in exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in December of 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed teams at the State Department to make an offer for Whelan, which the Russians rejected at the time. 

In the months that followed, at the urging of national security advisor Jake Sullivan, U.S. negotiators raised Krasikov with German interlocutors as part of a burgeoning new proposal to Russia, but made little headway. Russia had long sought the repatriation of Krasikov, a convicted murderer with ties to Russian intelligence.

But the Germans were reluctant to let Krasikov out. 

“He was certainly the biggest fish the Russians wanted back,” a senior U.S. official said about Krasikov. “This is a bad dude and a member of the Russian intelligence service.”

Blinken then began internal discussions at the State Department on the idea of enlarging the deal with someone Germany and other Western nations wanted freed: Alexey Navalny. 

Then things got even more complicated.

The White House found out that Gershkovich had been detained on March 29, 2023, when the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich’s employer, notified a senior official on the National Security Council. It soon became clear that the U.S. would be negotiating for the release of another American in Russian custody. 

Just days after Gershkovich’s detention, Blinken called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and highlighted that Gershkovich is a journalist working for a respected international news outlet, that claims of him being a spy were outrageous and false, that Moscow had “crossed the line” and that the matter should be solved diplomatically. Lavrov responded that Gershkovich had been “caught red-handed” and that “him being a journalist does not provide him immunity.” To which Blinken replied: “You know our country well. You know our system well. You know that for all our efforts to learn information, we do not use journalists.” 

Blinken moved to raise the idea of Navalny being part of a deal with German Foreign Minister Baerbock at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan, on April 17, 2023. The secretary then took it higher, to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who agreed to the idea after further conversations.

Talks then moved to intelligence channels — the CIA talking to its Russian counterparts about spies. U.S. officials were initially reluctant to communicate via intelligence channels because they did not want to lend credence to false Russian accusations that Gershkovich was engaged in espionage.  

Yet negotiators realized it might be the only way to clinch the Americans’ freedom. 

Over the summer and into 2024, it became apparent that any deal would have to be broadened in order to entice the Russians and have to include Krasikov, the Russian held in Germany on murder charges. American officials began putting out feelers with allied countries that were holding prisoners deemed to be of potential interest to the Kremlin — among them suspected Russian spies jailed in Poland, Slovenia and Norway. The U.S. also approached Kuwait and Brazil but those efforts did not pan out.

All the while, national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke regularly with German officials, hoping to convince them to part with Krasikov.

A breakthrough finally appeared imminent in early February when Mr. Biden met with Scholz in the Oval Office. The two leaders discussed options for a potential offer to Russia that would have included Krasikov, Whelan, Gershkovich and Alexey Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition voice. 

“For you, I will do this,” the German chancellor told Mr. Biden, according to a senior administration official familiar with the private meeting.

Seven days later though, Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison. The would-be offer collapsed before it was even presented to Moscow, U.S. officials said.

That same day, Sullivan met with Gershkovich’s parents and told them there could still be a path to a deal. 

Vice President Kamala Harris huddled privately at the Munich Security Conference with Chancellor Schloz of Germany to stress the importance of releasing Krasikov, a White House official said. Harris also conferred with Robert Golob, the prime minister of Slovenia, which was holding two Russian prisoners who the U.S. had identified as being of high priority to the Russians. 

Also at the Munich Security Conference, Blinken scrambled to bring Navalny’s newly widowed wife, Yulia, in through the security cordons for an emotional meeting with U.S. officials just ahead of her impactful speech at the conference. 

The U.S. would let a month or so pass before re-engaging the Germans with a new proposal that added to the deal Navalny’s associates and other political prisoners held in Russia.

In April, Mr. Biden sent a letter to Scholz, detailing the plan. Scholz signed off weeks later.

Meetings ensued between senior U.S. and Russian intelligence officials in a third country, according to officials. In early July, CIA director Burns presented his Russian negotiating partners the framework of a deal. A formal proposal came in mid-July. 

The deal that was formulated by the White House, blessed by the Germans and communicated via the CIA was now in Russian hands.

The answer from Moscow? 

We have a deal.

At around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, the president phoned his Slovenian counterpart to finalize last-minute details of the exchange. Mr. Biden was at this Rehoboth Beach vacation home, beset by COVID.

An hour later, knowing that a signature accomplishment of his presidency was within his grasp, he announced that he would not be seeking reelection.

contributed to this report.