From Russian prison to U.S. soil, three Americans join families

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and reporters Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland late Thursday night. U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris greeted each of the former Russian prisoners as they set foot on the tarmac. They later flew from Maryland to Texas, landing at Joint Base San Antonio early on Friday to spend time with family and begin medical evaluations. They are eligible for the treatment the military offers to Americans who have been wrongfully detained.

The prisoners, along with U.S. green card holder Vladimir Kara-Murza, went free in a multicountry prisoner swap on Thursday. Two dozen prisoners changed hands between Russia and the West. President Biden promised on Thursday he would keep working until all Americans wrongfully detained around the globe made their way home.

Gershkovich and Whelan were both serving 16-year prison sentences for espionage-related convictions in Russia that the United States had denounced as baseless. Gershkovich received his sentence just last month while Whelan has been behind bars since 2018. Kurmasheva received six and a half years behind bars during a closed-door sentencing last month, also on espionage-related charges.

What other prisoners went free? Five German citizens and seven Russian political prisoners also went free as part of the deal, according to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Many of those prisoners did not expect to go free, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday. Germany’s government made the right decision in freeing the prisoners, he said. Outspoken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was supposed to go free as part of an earlier prisoner swap proposal, but he died before authorities finalized the deal, Sullivan said.

Who did Russia get in exchange for all these prisoners? Eight Russian nationals returned to their homeland as part of the deal, Sullivan said. They came from prisons in Norway, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, and the United States. Kremlin-run media outlet RT reported that Vadim Krasikov was among the prisoners swapped. Krasikov has been imprisoned in Germany since 2020. In 2022, he was convicted of murdering Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian separatist, in a Berlin park in 2019. Other Russians released in the deal included individuals convicted of smuggling weapons and ammunition into Russia, individuals convicted or suspected of spying on Western governments, and a hacker who had received several lengthy sentences from U.S. courts.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift from yesterday about the prisoner exchange.