WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) —  Journalists Evan Gershkovich and Aslu Kurmasheva, along with businessman Paul Whelan, landed in America shortly before midnight Thursday after a prisoner swap took place between the U.S. and Russia.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were among those waiting with family members to greet them at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

 

The multinational negotiations placed into action Thursday set a total of about two dozen people free to their respective countries. All told, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh, Turkey, participated by hosting the location for the swap, in Ankara.

The U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has sought to defend the deals by saying the total number of wrongfully detained Americans has gone down even as swaps have increased.

Back in America

 

Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government vehemently denied.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”

“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.

Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied, and Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

The three flew from Maryland to Texas and landed at Joint Base San Antonio early Friday to begin medical evaluations after spending some time with their family members.

If they choose, they can receive treatment the military offers to wrongfully detained Americans.

Others Released

 

The dissidents released included 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 Navalny.

Freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

The Russian side 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.

Americans Still in Russia

 

There are other Americans who remain in Russian custody for various reasons.

Those individuals include:

  • Travis Leake, a musician convicted on drug charges and sentenced to prison.
  • Gordon Black, an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder.
  • Marc Fogel, a teacher sentenced on drug charges.
  • Ksenia Khavana, who was arrested in Yekaterinburg in February on treason charges, accused of collecting money for Ukraine’s military.

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