The United States and its allies agreed Thursday to a massive exchange of political prisoners with Russia, including returning jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan to U.S. soil.
The two detained U.S. citizens had been imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges. The U.S. government rejected the charges as bogus.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian American radio journalist who was detained in Russia in June 2023 on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army, also was among those the Kremlin released.
With 24 prisoners and detainees from the U.S., Russia and countries across Europe, it was the largest East-West exchange of prisoners since the end of the Cold War in 1991.
“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” President Biden said in a White House ceremony held just as the exchanges were playing out on an airport runway in Ankara, Turkey.
Mr. Gershkovich and the other Americans left on a plane that was scheduled to land on U.S. soil late Thursday night. Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were scheduled to greet them.
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“There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad,” Mr. Biden said.
In a statement from the White House, Mr. Biden thanked the governments of Germany, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Turkey for their help in bringing the deal together. Several allies had to make painful sacrifices before the deal could go through, U.S. officials said, in particular German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had to give up a convicted murderer.
“This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon,” Mr. Biden told reporters. “Our alliances make Americans safer.”
In exchange, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded and got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services.
Throughout the negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his release, with Mr. Putin himself raising it, The Associated Press reported.
Overall, some 16 people were released from Russian and Belarusian jails, and eight Russians were allowed to travel to Moscow, where Mr. Putin met them on the tarmac. Two minors were also sent to Russia, believed to be the children of a Russian couple jailed in Slovenia as sleeper agents.
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Other dissidents released included Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House that U.S. officials originally hoped to include Navalny in the package, but he died in a Russian jail in February under still-unexplained circumstances.
Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies on Capitol Hill were quick to credit the president with a diplomatic triumph.
Many Republicans said they were glad to see the American prisoners come home but noted the negotiations had also come at a cost, and could spur Mr. Putin to use hostages again as leverage.
“Without serious action to deter further hostage-taking by Russia, Iran and other states hostile to the United States, the costs of hostage diplomacy will continue to rise,” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a joint statement.
“As we renew our call for the return of all persons wrongfully detained by the Kremlin, we recognize that trading hardened Russian criminals for innocent Americans does little to discourage Putin’s reprehensible behavior,” the two top Republicans on Capitol Hill said.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in his own remarks on the deal, also raised the question of whether the Biden administration had paid too much to the Kremlin to secure the release of the detainees.
“So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia?” Mr. Trump asked on his Truth Social messaging site. “How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash?”
White House officials said no cash was involved in the swap.
At a White House event with families of the detainees, Mr. Biden said Elizabeth Whelan, sister of Paul Whelan, had been practically a White House resident. He then asked Ms. Kurmasheva’s daughter Miriam to come forth and told the room it was the girl’s 13th birthday. He called on the room to sing “Happy Birthday” to her, drawing tears from Miriam.
The deal had reportedly been in the works for months, but matters picked up in recent weeks when Mr. Gershkovich’s trial and conviction suddenly occurred in a Russia courtroom last month, clearing the way for Mr. Putin to release him to the West.
“Today is a joyous day for the safe return of our colleague Evan Gershkovich,” Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said in an open letter on social media.
“We are grateful to President Biden and his administration for working with persistence and determination to bring Evan home rather than see him shipped off to a Russian work camp for a crime he didn’t commit,” Ms. Tucker said.
• David R. Sands contributed to this article, which was based in part on wire service reports.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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