As part of the biggest and most intricate prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War, Russia reportedly released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who had been wrongfully convicted.
In addition, more than a dozen other liberal Russians who had been imprisoned by the Kremlin were traded for Russians detained in the United States and Europe, including an accused assassin.
At about 11:20 a.m. ET, Gershkovich and other Americans disembarked from a Russian plane at an airport in Ankara, the capital of Turkey.
Then Gershkovich was taken to a Turkish bus and taken to an aircraft lounge. The 32-year-old was imprisoned in Russia for over a year after being falsely accused of spying.
In a covert trial that lasted three days, Russia had previously sentenced him to sixteen years in a maximum-security prison colony.
In addition, Moscow freed writer Alsu Kurmasheva, former Marine Paul Whelan, and Pulitzer Prize-winning British-Russian columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for treasonous offenses.
A number of political dissidents were also freed by Russia.
After months of discussions at the highest levels of government in the United States, Russia, and Germany, a comprehensive agreement involving 24 inmates and at least six countries was reached.
Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hit man who was incarcerated, proved to be the arrangement’s pivotal figure.
The focal point of the agreement was Krasikov, a murderer who had been condemned but had been pushed for release by Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2021. Krasikov, combat veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war and intelligence operative, had shot and killed an anti-Putin rebel leader in a Berlin park in 2019.
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