WITH jet engines still whirring behind him, journalist Evan Gershkovich swept mum Ella in the air at a poignant reunion marking the end of 491 days held in Russian captivity.
Moments earlier he had whispered “thank you” in US President Joe Biden’s ear after landing on home soil following an astonishing behind-the-scenes game of political chess.
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Held in Russia on trumped-up charges, Evan finally left his 9ft by 12ft jail cell, where he had spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, on Thursday morning.
The 32-year-old was flown on a Soviet plane to an airport in Ankara, Turkey, where, looking bewildered, he was escorted across the tarmac and put on a flight to Germany, then on to America, where he was finally able to embrace his expectant family.
The Wall Street Journal reporter was freed in a surprising East-West exchange of 24 people following a highly secretive operation that involved seven nations.
The historic swap saw Evan and 16 others traded for eight Russian prisoners in the biggest exchange of its kind since the Cold War era.
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Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was meant to be part of this week’s landmark deal but died in Russian custody in February — believed murdered on the orders of Putin.
Evan’s release, with fellow US prisoners ex-Marine Paul Whelan and radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, came after spies and diplomats criss-crossed countries to do the deal.
‘Sham trial’
It is a tale worthy of a James Bond movie but, at its heart, Evan’s release is a story of a mother’s unrelenting love and determination.
Ella Milman has fought tirelessly to free her son, organising media campaigns, working with diplomats and personally lobbying Joe Biden and German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who courted controversy with the release of a high-profile assassin in the deal.
Before their long-awaited reunion, the family said: “We have waited 491 days for Evan’s release and it’s hard to describe what today feels like.
“We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile close up.”
Evan’s release is being lauded around the world at a time when tensions between Russia and the West are at an all-time high following the invasion of Ukraine.
Price of freedom
But his liberty came at a cost, as President Putin’s henchman, hitman Vadim Krasikov, who gunned down an ex-Russian rebel in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019, was let out of jail as part of the deal.
After the cold-blooded shooting of Chechen-Georgian dissident Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, 40, witnesses saw Krasikov hurriedly change clothes, shave off his beard and ditch a wig.
The judge in his case described the killing as “state terrorism” and said the order had almost certainly come from Putin himself.
The deal also involved the release of Artem and Anna Dultsev, Spanish-speaking spies living in Slovenia whose two young children had been in foster care since their 2022 arrest, oblivious to the fact they were Russian until they were met off a plane in Moscow by Putin last night.
It is a rare occurrence when a reporter becomes part of the story, but Evan’s extraordinary resilience and determination meant he never lost his lust for journalism.
When he was told to write a request for clemency to Putin before he left his Russian prison cell, he asked the despot if he would agree to a future interview.
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Evan’s ordeal began while working for the Wall Street Journal, a sister paper of The Sun, 1,500 miles from Moscow in Yekaterinburg, where he was reporting on Russian repression.
He was at a steakhouse in March 2023 when he was grabbed by agents from FSB, the Russian secret service, who accused him of spying for the CIA.
He ended up in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.
When he wasn’t in his cell, Evan was taken to a bare interrogation room — where two portraits of Putin hung on the walls — and questioned by chief FSB investigator Alexei Khizhnyak. The sessions would stretch for hours
Yet, typical of great journalists, Evan found a way to connect with his interrogator, learning they shared a passion for football and literature.
Khizhnyak was a fan of Liverpool while Evan supported rivals Arsenal, whose fans “delighted” him by holding up banners of support.
The unlikely pair also discussed books such as Leo Tolstoy’s War And Peace and Vasily Grossman’s Life And Fate.
But nothing could stop Putin from enacting his revenge on the West by jailing Evan.
Last month he was given a 16-year sentence for spying, on fake charges which saw him accused of being caught “red-handed” with official documents.
The world condemned the sham trial.
Journalists around the world stood in solidarity with Evan, including News Corp colleagues at The Sun.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his jailing showed Russia’s “utter contempt for media freedom”.
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Tough negotiations
The top-secret bid to free him was complex and relied on a joint effort by politicians across Europe and America.
When Ella, a Soviet-Jewish exile, was called to the White House last week to be told her son would be freed, she was warned to remain quiet for fear a leak could spike the deal.
From her home in Philadelphia she had built up a network of vital contacts and regularly met with the Wall Street Journal’s legal and executive team to strategise.
We stood next to him and immediately Evan was talking and joking
Evan’s mum Ella
She enlisted one justice department official after sitting next to him on a train and wrote coded letters to Evan.
She was so impressive that The Journal’s general counsel dubbed her “Ella the reporter”.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Silicon Valley billionaires, Russian oligarchs and celebrities were also working to bring Evan home.
Ella, who left Russia in 1979 and whose Jewish mum treated Holocaust survivors in Berlin after the Second World War, met with America’s special envoy for hostage affairs, ex-Green Beret lieutenant colonel Roger Cartsens, shortly after Evan was jailed.
‘Refused to give up’
Carstens, in turn, met with Chisto Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist whose work exposing Russia has been so dangerous that he is guarded by Austria’s elite Cobra forces when he goes home to Vienna to see his family.
According to the WSJ, Grozev used a cocktail napkin to write a two-column list of Russian prisoners the US could trade for Evan and Paul Whelan, the ex US Marine accused of spying in 2018.
But it would require the release of Putin’s assassin Krasikov.
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Around the same time, ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt told President Joe Biden the German government was considering the possibility of releasing Krasikov in return for famous dissident Alexei Navalny.
Then, last June, Ella travelled to Moscow with Evan’s dad Mikhail for her son’s appeal hearing, ignoring FBI warnings they might be arrested.
She said: “We stood next to him and immediately Evan was talking and joking.
“We were laughing. Russians don’t expect laughter in court. Crying, that’s what they expect.”
Just before their flight back to America the couple were told their Russian visas were being annulled and an immigration officer told them: “Go (back) to New York.”
That same month, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor at Radio Free Europe, was arrested.
Undeterred, in September Ella went to a Wall Street Journal gala dinner, thrown by a think tank in Manhattan, which is where she cornered Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and begged him to help.
We were laughing. Russians don’t expect laughter in court. Crying, that’s what they expect
Evan’s mum Ella
Finally the cogs of freedom started to move after an extraordinary and unexpected interview between Putin and ex-Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson in February this year.
Carlson told the President’s aides he would ask about Evan — and Putin made it clear he wanted his assassin returned, purring that an exchange would only take place for “a person serving a sentence in an allied country of the US”.
Now America knew what it would take to free Navalny, Evan, Whelan and other prisoners serving time in hell-hole Russian jails.
But a week later the campaign was dealt a huge blow when Navalny was found dead in his cell.
He had already survived several assassination bids.
Still Ella refused to give up. In May, the German Federal Intelligence Service opened its own talks with Russia in exchange for the release of as many of its own citizens as possible.
Two days after Ella personally asked Biden at a White House event to press the German leader to act, he sent a letter to Scholz making a formal request to include Evan in any negotiations.
Over the past two months American intelligence officers have met with Russians in Middle East capitals to help secure the landmark deal, while German officials also held clandestine meetings.
CIA director William Burns then flew to Ankara in Turkey to sort logistics.
As Evan touched down at Joint Base Andrews Airport in Maryland, he hugged Presidential nominee Kamala Harris before embracing Joe Biden and, finally, his family.
Telling waiting reporters he “felt fine”, he also spoke of his worries for other political prisoners languishing in Russian jails.
He said: “I spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where everyone I sat with was a political prisoner. Nobody knows them publicly, they have various political beliefs . . . I’d like to talk to people about that.”
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