Issue of the Week: Human Rights, War, Personal Growth
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris greeting the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a prisoner freed by Russia, as he arrived at Joint Base Andrews, The New York Times
We had another issue ready to post, when the extraordinary news broke of the largest prisoner swap between the US and allies, and Russia, since the Cold War.
It is rare, very rare, when everything on all the news venues stops, and, for two days now (it’s early on August 2 at this point), for all practical purposes one and only one story is covered 24/7.
Today, while hot wars are being fought and threatening to explode further, between the forces of freedom, democracy and human rights, and of dictatorship and the destruction of human rights (and within countries in each group as well)–diplomacy, even while used as a tool of war, happened between global opponents that resulted in numerous citizens of the US and allies unjustly imprisoned, by Russia, being set free and returned home. And included was the release of some Russian prisoners who were effectively freedom fighters in one way or another in Russia.
It has been one of the most emotionally powerful moments in recent memory. And while enraging in the manipulative brutality aspect of the context, hopeful in reminding that even as war in various forms rages, diplomacy can occur. Two things can happen at once. And the possibility of the process being applied to other situations is by defintiion at least potentially enhanced by going through the process, while fundamental values of human rights are simultaneously upheld, including by continuing to defend those at the front lines of defending freedom and global stability.
It’s multidimensional chess, morally, potically and strategically. But regardless of where things go from here–and its more likely they will go toward more conflict before resolving (in a more workable system of global justice, or in the end of the world)–this is a moment when many nations came together through an enormously complex and challenging process to result in more good people being freed for a smaller number of bad people being traded. The result looked something like a mini-example of global cooperation to bring freedom to people from more than one nation by the leadership of a number of nations.
There is darkness surrounding this light, a darkness that continues to hold other prisoners as virtual hostages guilty of nothing, to be used as pawns.
But the moment of light is brilliantly exhilarating.
Here are the stories from the front pages tomorrow, August 2, of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal:
“Major Inmate Swap Frees Dissidents and U.S. Journalists From Russian Prisons”
By Anton Troianovski and Mark Mazzetti, August 1, 2024, The New York Times
Anton Troianovski reported from Berlin, and Mark Mazzetti Washington.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was among 24 people released in a seven-nation, painstakingly negotiated deal that President Biden hailed as a triumph of diplomacy.
A prisoner swap on Thursday among seven countries freed the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans held in Russia, along with several jailed Russian dissidents, in a deal whose size and complexity has no parallel in the post-Soviet era.
The trade freed 15 people imprisoned by Russia and one by its ally Belarus, in return for eight held in Western countries, including a convicted assassin and several held as Russian spies. It was all the more remarkable for taking place two and a half years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin has cast as a war for Russian survival against the United States and its allies who are arming and financing Kyiv.
The deal, culminating a long and elaborate web of negotiations behind the scenes, delivered a diplomatic victory for President Biden, who has long pledged to bring home imprisoned Americans and to support Russia’s ruthlessly repressed democracy advocates, journalists and war critics.
“Their brutal ordeal is over, and they’re free,” Mr. Biden said at the White House, speaking of the freed Americans, whose relatives flanked him. “Moments ago, their families and I were able to speak to them on the phone from the Oval Office,” he said, and he wished them “welcome almost home.”
The exchange took place at the international airport in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, and involved seven planes ferrying the 24 prisoners from the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Russia, according to the Turkish government, which has positioned itself as a mediator between Moscow and the United States throughout the war in Ukraine.
It was a triumph of a different sort for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has long highlighted his loyalty to Russian agents captured abroad. In nearly a quarter-century in power, he has leveraged the Russian law enforcement and court systems for political advantage, using them as tools of domestic repression but also for the prosecution of foreigners, sometimes on sham espionage charges or drug offenses, for use in prisoner swaps.
The trade freed Mr. Gershkovich, 32, who had spent 16 months in a Russian prison; Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, a Russian American editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was also arrested last year; and Paul Whelan, 54, arrested in 2018. Five of those released were Germans or people with dual German and Russian nationality.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, while traveling in Japan, told reporters that he had spoken with the Americans and that “they all sounded strong of voice, strong of mind, strong of spirit.” Officials said the three boarded a plane in Ankara bound for Joint Base Andrews near Washington, where Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris planned to meet them.
The deal also freed some of the best-known Russian critics of the Kremlin: Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, a Washington Post contributor who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary this year; Ilya Yashin, 41, a politician who spoke out against the war in Ukraine, an act Russia has criminalized; and Lilia Chanysheva, 42, and Ksenia V. Fadeyeva, 32, two associates of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who died at 47 in a Russian prison in February.
Oleg Orlov, 71, the co-chairman of Memorial, the Russian human rights group, and Aleksandra Y. Skochilenko, 33, an artist who left price tags with antiwar messages in a supermarket, were also released.
In a statement, the Kremlin said that Mr. Putin had pardoned those convicted in Russia to enable their release, and that the country was “grateful to the leadership of all countries that assisted.”
In exchange, Germany released Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of murdering a Chechen former separatist fighter in Berlin in 2019 on orders from the Russian government.
Slovenia set free Maria Mayer and Ludwig Gisch, whom the Slovenian authorities arrested in December 2022, accusing them of being Russian “illegals” — deep-cover spies — posing as Argentine immigrants and living in Ljubljana, the capital, under pseudonyms. On Wednesday, the two pleaded guilty to espionage and were sentenced by a Slovenian court.
The United States, Norway and Poland each released one person accused of spying for Russia, and the U.S. government also returned two Russian hackers convicted of financial cybercrimes.
Hours after the trade in Ankara, Mr. Putin greeted the Russians freed by the West on a red carpet laid out on the tarmac at the Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. State television showed him embracing Mr. Krasikov, the first off the plane, and clapping him on the back and upper arm.
“I want to congratulate all of you on your return to the motherland,” Mr. Putin told the group of returned Russians.
The deal was negotiated primarily by senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency; its German counterpart, the B.N.D.; and the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the Russian domestic intelligence agency formerly known as the K.G.B.
The swap was the latest and largest of several prisoner exchanges that the Biden administration has negotiated with Mr. Putin even as the relationship between Russia and the United States has hit new lows over the war in Ukraine. In 2022, the United States freed Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms trafficker, in exchange for Russia’s release of Brittney Griner, the basketball star arrested on cannabis possession charges.
For Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, agreeing to the release of Mr. Krasikov, the convicted assassin, was politically risky — a signal of his commitment to the alliance with the United States and to supporting the Russian opposition, but a gamble that voters would not punish his government for releasing the man convicted of one of the highest-profile killings in Germany’s recent history.
“I particularly owe a great sense of gratitude to the chancellor,” Mr. Biden said at the White House. “The demands they were making of me required me to get some significant concessions from Germany, which they originally concluded they could not do because of the person in question.”
The president took a swipe at Donald J. Trump, his predecessor, who has denigrated American allies and alliances. “For anyone who questions whether allies matter — they do, they matter,” Mr. Biden said. “And today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world.”
When a reporter asked about Mr. Trump’s claim that he could win the release of Americans from Russia without giving anything in return, Mr. Biden shot back, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?”
The negotiations for a prisoner swap accelerated with the arrest of Mr. Gershkovich in March 2023 on espionage charges that were widely seen outside Russia as fabricated and denounced as fiction by his employer and the U.S. government.
Russian prosecutors accused the reporter of gathering classified information for the C.I.A. about a major military factory near Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains. But they have not made public any evidence to back up the charge, and his trial was held behind closed doors.
Mr. Gershkovich, the American-born son of immigrants from the Soviet Union, became widely recognized in the West as a symbol of press freedom — or the lack of it — and of the threat to journalists in authoritarian countries. Before his arrest, he had lived and worked in Russia for six years, developing what friends described as a deep affection for the country’s people and culture.
The Wall Street Journal and journalist groups mounted a campaign throughout his incarceration to keep him in the public eye and maintain pressure for his release. In a joint statement on Wednesday, The Journal’s publisher, Almar Latour, and editor in chief, Emma Tucker, said, “We condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations and a fake trial as part of an all-out assault on the free press and truth.”
“Evan and his family have displayed unrivaled courage, resilience and poise during this ordeal,” they added, “which came to an end because of broad advocacy for his release around the world.”
Mr. Gershkovich’s family thanked Mr. Biden and other officials who made the trade happen, along with the journalists who came to his support. “It’s hard to describe what today feels like,” the family said in a statement. “We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close.”
Russia made it clear that the prisoner it most wanted from the West was Mr. Krasikov, the assassin imprisoned in Germany. Mr. Putin praised Mr. Krasikov when the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked him about Mr. Gershkovich in February. Dismissing the fact that Mr. Krasikov had been convicted of murder, Mr. Putin described him as having been motivated by “patriotic sentiments.”
In recent weeks, the court proceedings against the released Americans suddenly accelerated, suggesting that negotiations for their exchange were speeding up, too; Russia often insists that only after a verdict can an inmate be considered for trade. Russian espionage cases typically last for months, but on July 19, only the third day of trial proceedings against Mr. Gershkovich, he was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The same day, a different Russian court convicted Ms. Kurmasheva, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor, and sentenced her to six and a half years in prison. She had been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, a designation Russia applied to journalists, or anyone else, receiving foreign support or subject to foreign influence.
Mr. Whelan, a former Marine and former police officer, was arrested in a Moscow hotel; prosecutors said he had a flash drive containing classified information supplied by a Russian contact. His Russian lawyer said Mr. Whelan thought the drive contained travel photos and videos.
At the time, Mr. Whelan worked in corporate security for an American auto-parts maker, BorgWarner, and had traveled several times to Russia. Relatives said that he had developed friendships with Russians, and that when he was arrested, he was there to attend a wedding.
The prisoner exchange left open the fates of other Americans and dissidents remaining in Russian prisons. In June, a court sentenced Yuri Malev, who holds American and Russian citizenship, to three and a half years in prison after he criticized the war in Ukraine on social media.
In July, Michael Travis Leake, an American rock musician, was sentenced to 13 years after prosecutors accused him of organizing a drug-trafficking ring. And Marc Fogel, a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, was sentenced in 2022 to 14 years in a penal colony on cannabis charges.
In a statement, Mr. Fogel’s relatives expressed dismay that he had not been part of the swap.
“It is inconceivable to us that Russian dissidents would be prioritized over U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange,” they said. “Marc has been unjustly detained for far too long and must be prioritized in any swap negotiations with Russia, regardless of his level of notoriety or celebrity.”
Reporting was contributed by Richard Pérez-Peña, Ivan Nechepurenko, Valerie Hopkins, Edward Wong, Safak Timur, Andrew Higgins, Neil MacFarquhar, Alina Lobzina, Katie Rogers and Peter Baker.
Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski
Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A.More about Mark Mazzetti
. . .
For an anthralling history and riveting look at this story, go to the following link:
“Behind the Prisoner Swap: Spies, a Killer, Secret Messages and Unseen Diplomacy”
. . .
“WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich Is Free”
By Drew Hinshaw, Joe Parkinson and Aruna Viswanatha, August 1, 2024, The Wall Street Journal
Russia’s release of 32-year-old American secured as part of largest East-West prisoner swap since Cold War
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.653.0_en.html#goog_2059132586TAP FOR SOUNDEvan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter wrongfully detained in Russia since March 2023, is free. Here’s a look back at the fight for his release. Photo: Associated Press/The Wall Street Journal
Russia freed wrongly convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as part of the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, in which he and more than a dozen others jailed by the Kremlin were exchanged for Russians held in the U.S. and Europe, including a convicted murderer.
Gershkovich and other Americans left Russian aircraft at roughly 11:20 a.m. Eastern time at an airport in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Gershkovich then was transported to an airport lounge via a Turkish bus. He and the other Americans boarded an aircraft to the U.S.
“They are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families,” President Biden said in a post on X.
Biden plans to greet Gershkovich and the other Americans at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where they are expected to land around 11:30 p.m., the White House said. Vice President Kamala Harris is also expected to attend.
Russia had kept Gershkovich, 32 years old, behind bars for more than a year on a false allegation of espionage. It sentenced him in a hurried and secret three-day trial to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
Moscow also released former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason-related charges. Russia also released a number of political dissidents.
The sweeping deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, and came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of government in the U.S., Russia and Germany, whose prisoner, Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, emerged as the linchpin to the arrangement.
Evan Gershkovich; Paul Whelan, in short-sleeve shirt; and Alsu Kurmasheva, in white shirt and gray pants, aboard an aircraft after their release. PHOTO: U.S. GOVERNMENT/REUTERS
“The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy,” Biden said moments after their release. “Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”
Speaking from the White House later with the families of Gershkovich and the others who were freed Thursday, Biden said they were able to connect with the recently released prisoners on the telephone.
“Multiple countries helped get this done,” Biden said. “They joined a difficult complex negotiation at my request. I personally thank them all again.”
Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker said the moment Gershkovich walked free from a Russian plane was a great joy for the reporter and his family, and that the publication has set in place a plan to ensure he is properly supported once he returns to the U.S.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a glass box during an appeal of his arrest in a Russian court in April. PHOTO: EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
A Russian government plane on the tarmac Thursday after landing at Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey. PHOTO: TUNAHAN TURHAN/REUTERS
The Journal’s publisher, Almar Latour, joined Tucker in a joint statement to “condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations and a fake trial as part of an all-out assault on the free press and truth. Unfortunately, many journalists remain unjustly imprisoned in Russia and around the world.”
Latour and Tucker paid tribute to Gershkovich’s parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, and his sister, Danielle, and her husband. “Their unwavering strength, positivity and resolve will continue to serve as an inspiration,” they said.
In a statement, Gershkovich’s family said it was “hard to describe what today feels like,” after waiting 491 days for Evan’s release.
“We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close,” the statement said. “Most important now is taking care of Evan and being together again. No family should have to go through this, and so we share relief and joy today with Paul and Alsu’s families.”
The family thanked Biden and other U.S. officials, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “and every U.S. or foreign government official who helped get Evan released.”
“Our family has felt so much love and support from Evan’s fellow journalists, his wonderful friends, and many, many people around the world,” the statement said. “It made a difference to Evan and to us. And we especially thank Evan’s colleagues at Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. They have taken care of Evan and our entire family since the beginning, and we are forever grateful.”
White House officials, U.S. diplomats and personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency had crisscrossed Europe and the Middle East looking for friendly governments willing to release the Russian spies in their custody in return for Americans held by the Kremlin.
Biden—about an hour before he notified the world he was dropping out of the presidential race on July 21—called the prime minister of Slovenia, whose country was contributing two convicted Russian spies to the swap, to secure the pardon necessary for the deal to proceed. CIA Director William Burns traveled to Turkey last week to meet his counterpart there and complete the logistics for the swap.
Vadim Krasikov, a former intelligence officer and Russian hit man, was serving a life sentence for the murder of a rebel leader in Berlin. PHOTO: BERLIN POLICE
At the center of the deal was Krasikov, a convicted murderer that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been pushing to free since 2021. The former intelligence officer, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, had shot and killed a rebel leader in a Berlin park, and was serving a life sentence.
The exchange is emblematic of a new era of state-sponsored hostage-taking by autocratic governments seeking leverage over rivals. It was negotiated as tensions soared between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine.
It also offers sobering evidence of the asymmetry between the U.S. and Russia in this new, piratical order. Putin can order foreigners plucked from restaurants and hotels and have them given lengthy prison sentences on spurious charges—something an American leader can’t do.
As the U.S. sought over the course of a year to extract Gershkovich, Whelan and others without offering Krasikov in return, senior Russian intelligence officials had made clear there was no deal without him. German officials eventually agreed, extracting their own price of a dozen Russian prisoners in return.
The Biden administration has pursued a series of large prisoner swaps with hostile countries, including last year extracting 10 Americans and a fugitive from Venezuela and a major deal with Iran in which the U.S. released billions of dollars in frozen revenue. Critics have questioned whether such deals encourage the arrest of more Americans.
Jailed Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza talks to his lawyers during a court hearing last year to consider an appeal against his prison sentence. PHOTO: MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in an interview that the president “is willing to take the hard decision to make sure that you get innocent people home, and they are going to do their damnedest to do that, even if they have to pay a price.”
The State Department classifies a number of countries, including Russia and North Korea, as posing such a serious risk of detention that it discourages Americans from visiting. Privately, U.S. officials call them “abductor states” and fear their number will grow unless there are new measures to deter them.
Who’s Who in Russia’s Prisoner Exchange With the West
The U.S. designated Gershkovich and Whelan as “wrongfully detained,” which commits the government to work toward their release.
Thursday’s elaborate swap happened five months after the unexpected death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison camp in February. The U.S. and Germany had initially hoped that Navalny could be released in a broad agreement that began taking shape earlier this year, after Biden invited Scholz, the German chancellor, to the White House.
The two countries regrouped after Navalny’s death, assembling a package through paper-only draft proposals, hand delivered from Sullivan’s office to his counterpart in Germany. Officials from Biden and Scholz on down tried for weeks to overcome the logistical hurdles of such a large trade.
Putin and other officials had been increasingly vocal about doing a prisoner swap for Gershkovich and others since late last year. In a February interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin indicated he especially wanted Krasikov, who gunned down a rebel leader in broad daylight in a public park in the heart of the German capital in 2019.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich hears the verdict following a trial in which he was falsely accused of spying. PHOTO: DMITRI LOVETSKY/AP
Gershkovich—the first foreign correspondent charged with espionage in Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed—was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, in March 2023, while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg, about 900 miles east of Moscow.
Prosecutors falsely said Gershkovich was gathering information about a defense contractor for the CIA. In fact, he was on assignment for the Journal. Gershkovich, the Journal and the U.S. government have all vehemently denied the accusation against him.
Gershkovich’s trial, condemned by Washington as a sham, was held in secret, and Russian authorities haven’t publicly released any evidence to back their assertions.
Gershkovich’s court appearances—during which he was often photographed smiling—became front-page news across America and Europe. Well-wishers raised banners at Major League Baseball games and Premier League soccer matches, calling for his release.
Journalists and celebrity news presenters from Carlson to CNN anchor Jake Tapper spoke out on his behalf.
Supporters received upbeat and joke-filled letters from Gershkovich, written in his 9-by-12-foot cell at Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo prison, where Soviet interrogators once tortured and murdered alleged “class enemies.”
Whelan, the longest-serving American deemed unlawfully detained in Russia, had also become a high-profile concern for Washington.
Included in Thursday’s swap also was Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist. The mother of two adolescent girls was detained last year for failing to register her American passport when she entered Russia on a visit to her ailing mother.
Russian authorities opened a new criminal case against Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, in December over a book she helped edit that criticizes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She was eventually charged with spreading false information about Russia’s military, before being abruptly convicted after a secret trial and sentenced on July 19.
Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested in Moscow in late 2018. PHOTO: PAVEL GOLOVKIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kurmasheva has denied the charges against her through her lawyer and family. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and her family say she was targeted because she is a journalist and U.S. citizen.
Her husband, Pavel Butorin, said in a post on X after her sentencing that he and his daughters “know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home.”
Other freed Russians included a suspected intelligence officer who had been living undercover in Norway’s Arctic north before he was arrested. Poland freed a Russian-born Spanish journalist charged with espionage. The U.S. freed a Russian businessman convicted of stealing millions from U.S. companies.
Among the Russian political prisoners freed is Lilia Chanysheva, who was close to Navalny. Americans left behind in Russian prisons include Marc Fogel, a history teacher at the high school where U.S. Moscow embassy staff sent their children. He is serving 14 years in a penal colony. He was arrested in 2021 for carrying less than an ounce of medical marijuana. He said he had intended to use the drug for medical purposes to treat chronic pain.
The U.S. has sought to free him on “humanitarian grounds.” His family has said he has suffered from neuropathy and has a hip replacement making him vulnerable to falls.
Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, listens to her lawyer during a hearing in Russia in May. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Among the U.S.-held prisoners included in the swap who are returning to Russia are a pair of notable convicted hackers, both of whom were facing lengthy sentences behind bars.
Vladislav Klyushin, a Russian national described as having “extensive ties” to the Russian president’s office, was sentenced last year to nearly a decade in prison after being found guilty by a federal jury in Boston of hacking into corporate earnings databases to steal and trade on nonpublic information.
Roman Seleznev, the son of a member of the Russian parliament, was described by U.S. prosecutors as “one of the most prolific credit-card thieves in history.” He was convicted in 2016 by a federal jury in Seattle on charges of hacking into hundreds of businesses and selling stolen data online, resulting in more than $169 million in fraud losses.
Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com, Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Aruna Viswanatha at aruna.viswanatha@wsj.com