Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan released from Russian prisons in prisoner swap

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are out of Russian prisons and in American custody after the two were exchanged in what some media outlets are calling “a major prisoner swap.”

The pair were imprisoned on espionage charges and were in the process of being exchanged, Bloomberg was the first to report. The Telegraph and ABC News both also reported the news of their release.

Update 12:24 p.m. ET, Aug. 1: President Joe Biden addressed the nation surrounded by the family members of the Americans detained in Russia. The families of Whelan, Gershkovich along with the families of Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimor Kara-Murza were brought to the White House, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, CNN reported.

Biden said the prisoner’s “brutal ordeal is over, and they’re free” adding that it was a “relief” for those families, who spoke with the now freed prisoners over the phone as they returned to the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal also celebrated the release of Gershkovich after 491 days in Russian custody. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper called his release “a historic day for The Wall Street Journal” as champagne bottles were opened in the newsroom.

Update 10:51 a.m. ET, Aug. 1: Gershkovich and Whelan were confirmed to be among the prisoners that were exchanged, CNN reported on air, confirming information from Turkish intelligence.

In all 26 prisoners from the U.S., Russia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus were part of the swap, Reuters reported. Ten prisoners, including two minors, were being taken to Russia; 13 were being taken to Germany and three were being transferred to the U.S.

Update 10:48 a.m. ET, Aug. 1: Turkey said it was a mediator in the prisoner exchange discussions.

“The National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) conducted the most extensive prisoner exchange operation of recent times in Ankara,” the Turkish Presidency Directorate of Communications said, according to CNN.

Several people left a plane that had been parked on the tarmac of Turkey’s airport in Ankara. It wasn’t clear who the people were.

Original report: A senior Biden administration official confirmed the swap to ABC News. The news outlet reported that the swap involved 24 prisoners, the largest exchange since the Cold War.

The exchange involves the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other countries, CBS News reported.

The U.S. State Department had designated Gershkovich and Whelan as wrongly detained.

Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on March 29, 2023. He was in the country as a working journalist for The Wall Street Journal. He is American-born to Soviet-era immigrants. The newspaper said he was detained in Yekaterinburg while on assignment and with press credentials from Russia’s foreign minister.

He had been sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony last month after what The Wall Street Journal called “a hurried, secret trial that the U.S. government has condemned as a sham.”

Wheland was detained in 2018 and was convicted, eventually sentenced to 16 years in jail in 2020, Bloomberg reported. ABC News said the former Marine had U.S. British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, but was traveling on a U.S. passport when he was arrested.

His lawyer this week said that she was not sure where her client was and was unable to contact him, The Washington Post reported.

“There are rumors about a possible exchange,” lawyer Olga Karlova, said on Wednesday, according to the newspaper. “I sent a request to the colony administration, but they are not responding.”

She also reached out to the Public Monitoring Commission which oversees prisoners in the country. A member of the commission told Karlova that she had no information about a swap but did not deny it either.

“Could this be a group exchange? Anything is possible,” commission member Eva Merkacheva wrote, the Post reported. “This has never happened in modern Russian history, but in Soviet history it did. Could this be a pardon? In the case of some, it could have been (as they wrote a petition to the president), but the rest did not do this.”

Check back for more on this developing story.

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