Russia, the United States, and several other countries have carried out the largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War, freeing 16 people — including RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan — from Russian and Belarusian prisons, while eight Russians were returned home.
U.S. President Joe Biden hailed the historic exchange on August 1 at a White House news conference with several family members of the Americans who had been jailed at his side.
“Their brutal ordeal is over,” Biden said, calling the deal that made the exchange possible “a feat of diplomacy.”
Biden slammed Russia for conducting “show trials” that led to the imprisonment of Gershkovich, Whelan, and Kurmasheva, saying “all three were falsely accused of being spies.”
The prisoner swap also included dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen who was imprisoned for making critical remarks about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. government released a photo showing Gershkovich, Kurmasheva, and Whelan on a plane, saying they were on their way back home. Kara-Murza was to fly to Germany, but he told Biden in a call that he hopes to visit the United States soon.
The family members who joined Biden for the news conference included Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, who also works for RFE/RL, and their two daughters, Bibi and Miriam. Biden said the prisoner swap was an “incredible relief” for all the family members present, adding that they had spoken to their freed loved ones by phone from the Oval Office right before the news conference.
The White House released a photo showing Kurmasheva’s daughters in the Oval Office leaning over a telephone and speaking to their mother.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Butorin said he and his daughters are “overwhelmed with emotions, still trying to process what actually happened to us today, being in the White House, hearing Alsu’s voice from the Oval Office, next to President Biden. That was something very special.
“But it’s been an incredibly difficult year for us, and I’m glad we’re at the end of this journey, and now we look forward to hugging Alsu, and to helping her reintegrate into the free world after so many months of unjust imprisonment in Russia.”
During the news conference, Biden motioned for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer, telling reporters that August 2 was her 13th birthday and then asking everyone to sing Happy Birthday to her. The teen was emotional as Biden put an arm around her shoulders and then wiped away a tear before walking back to her sister and father, who embraced her.
“Now she gets to celebrate with her mom,” Biden said. “That’s what this is all about — families able to be together again. Like they should have been all along.”
Biden said the prisoner swap required “significant concessions” from Germany, which released FSB Colonel Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of the murder in 2019 of a former Chechen militant in Berlin.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the decision to release the convicted hit man had been difficult.
“Nobody took this decision to deport a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment after only a few years…lightly,” Scholz said, speaking in Cologne, Germany, where some of the released prisoners were due to arrive.
“The state’s interest in seeing him punished had to be weighed against the danger to the bodies and in some cases the lives of innocent people in prison in Russia and political prisoners,” he told reporters.
Biden said Germany asked for nothing in exchange. The president added that the prisoner swap was “a powerful example of why it is important to have friends in the world.”
Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey “stood with us,” Biden said. “They made bold and brave decisions, released prisoners being held in their countries who were justifiably being held, and provided the logistical support to get the Americans home.”
Biden said earlier in a statement that all told, the United States and its partners, in particular Germany, negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia and Belarus — including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) said on August 1 it played “a major mediation role” in the swap involving 26 people from prisons in seven countries, “which is the most comprehensive in recent times.”
It said the negotiations allowed for the exchange of “Russian citizens and citizens of Western countries imprisoned in the U.S.A., Germany, Poland, Norway, Slovenia, Russia, and Belarus,” adding that German mercenary Rico Krieger imprisoned in Belarus and Russian dissident Ilya Yashin and Kraskiov imprisoned in Germany were also released.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel called the exchange “the largest multi-country swap of its kind.” Speaking at a briefing on August 1, he said the Americans would be back in the United States within hours to be reunited with their families.
The White House announced that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive presidential nominee in the November 5 election, would welcome them at 11:30 p.m. local time.
The eight freed Russians arrived in Moscow late on August 1. Putin welcomed them after they landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.
“I want to congratulate you on your return to the motherland,” Putin said in comments broadcast on state TV. Addressing those who had served in Russia’s military, he added: “I want to thank you for your loyalty to the oath, duty, and the motherland, which did not forget about you.”
William Courtney, a career U.S. foreign service officer who worked on U.S.-Soviet arms talks before becoming U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan after the breakup of the Soviet Union, spoke with RFE/RL about the latest swap.
“I think it sends a message to the world that the Kremlin really would like to offload some of these internationally prominent prisoners because detaining them doesn’t help Russia’s image,” said Courtney, now an analyst at the Washington-based think tank Rand Corp.
He said Russia didn’t want Kara Murza to die in prison, like opposition politician Aleksei Navalny did in an Arctic gulag in February, “because Russia got only bad publicity” out of that.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by TASS as saying the Kremlin hoped those who had left Russia would stay away.
“I believe that all our enemies should stay [abroad], and all those who are not our enemies should return. That’s my point of view,” TASS cited Peskov as saying.
News of the prisoner swap was also welcomed by U.S. lawmakers; however, some Republicans questioned the “steep price” that the United States had to pay.
“Those returning to Russia are some of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s most valuable assets who will be glad to return to their villainous ways,” said Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on X that he celebrated the news but remains “concerned that continuing to trade innocent Americans for actual Russian criminals held in the U.S. and elsewhere sends a dangerous message to Putin that only encourages further hostage taking.”
Speculation of a swap had grown in recent days as defense lawyers for several high-profile people being held in Russian prison facilities said the whereabouts of their clients were unknown, a situation that often arises when inmates are being moved.
One of the first signs that the swap had started on August 1 came from a group of Russian lawyers and rights defenders known as Pervy Otdel, which posted a message on Telegram noting the flight track of an Antonov plane that had been previously involved in prisoner exchanges.
Data from the flight-tracking site Flightradar24 confirmed the plane’s movements, while the Russian media outlet Agenstvo reported that several special Russian government planes in recent days had traveled to and from regions where prisons holding dissidents are being held.
Meanwhile, four Russians who have been charged or jailed in the United States disappeared from a database of inmates operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons prior to the announcement of the prisoner swap.
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