Russian jail moves mystery prompts hopes of major prisoner swap

Hopes of a major prisoner swap between Russia and the West have risen after a series of mysterious inmate movements.

At least nine high-profile Western prisoners have reportedly been moved from their cells in recent days, prompting speculation that Vladimir Putin has agreed to swap them for Russians held in the West.

Sources in Ukraine suggested that Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British opposition activist, and Paul Whelan, a former US marine, could be among those being released from Russian custody.

Lawyers for Mr Kara-Murza and Mr Whelan said their whereabouts were currently unknown, although Mr Whelan’s lawyer said he did not believe he would be involved in a swap.

The prisoners who have vanished in recent days also include Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition figure who criticised Mr Putin over the war in Ukraine, and several associates of Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin critic who died in an Arctic jail in February.

The Kremlin and the US state department, which have reportedly negotiated a deal, declined to comment, while John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesman, told Puck News that he “wouldn’t want to mess anything up to prevent there from being a positive result”.

There is speculation that a deal could involve Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been imprisoned in Russia since March 2023. The Kremlin previously said there could be no exchange involving Mr Gershkovich until after he received a criminal sentence, which was handed down by a court last month.

His trial was condemned as a sham by Western politicians, including Joe Biden, who has repeatedly said he hopes to secure the journalist’s release.

Karine Jean Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that Mr Biden had “made it a priority to get home wrongfully detained Americans back to their families”, but declined to comment on any specific negotiations with Russia.

“We cannot negotiate in public because we want to make sure that we get this job done, get this work done,” she said.

Focus, a German newspaper, reported that one of the opposition figures who had been moved from his cell in recent days is Kevin Lik, 18, a Russian-German who was jailed in December by Russia for emailing images to “representatives of a foreign state” on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine.

If the prisoners are exchanged, it is thought that Russia could be given Vadim Krasikov, the “bicycle assassin” who is serving a life-sentence for the murder of an opponent of Mr Putin’s regime in Berlin, Alexander Vinnik, who is serving time on money laundering charges, and Vladislav Klyushin, who was found guilty of involvement in hacking and data trafficking.

Data on a number of Russian prisoners held in the United States has reportedly disappeared from the US federal prisons database, prompting speculation they will be released.

They include Alexander Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenok, and Roman Seleznyov. The Russian spies Anna and Artem Dultsev were also reported in Slovenian media as possible Western prisoners who could be swapped.

A potential exchange could take place as early as Wednesday evening in Berlin, sources suggested.

The investigative news outlet Agentstvo reported that at least eight aircraft from the Russian presidential fleet have visited locations where the missing prisoners were located in the last week.

Speculation of an imminent prisoner swap started on Monday when Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, pardoned a German citizen who had been sentenced to death.

Rico Krieger was found guilty in October by a court in Belarus of planting explosives on a train line, although his sentence was only reported by Belarusian media in July.

German media and the Ukrainian military unit that he was supposed to have served with denied the charges and instead said that Krieger had been lured to Belarus under false pretences and then framed.

Even so, the sudden focus on Krieger, his sentence and his equally sudden pardon by Lukashenko sparked speculation from analysts that this could allow for a wider prisoner exchange.

The foreign ministries of both Belarus and Germany both confirmed later on Monday that they were in “talks” about a prisoner swap.

German officials from the foreign ministry and Chancellery did not respond when asked about speculation that there had been a breakthrough on Tuesday.

Decision ‘only after US election’

Reports from various Russian and eastern European outlets do not agree on which prisoners would be involved in a possible swap.

Mr Whelan’s lawyer told the Kremlin-linked Moscow-based Izvestia newspaper that he did not think that his client was being considered for a prisoner release deal even though he had disappeared. “He can spend six months in one zone and then reappear in another zone,” he said.

“The issue of exchange is not being decided now. This decision can only be made after the election of a new US president.”

Nor did Kremlin-linked Russian media mention Mr Gershkovich, or Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-US citizen sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

But the exiled Russian political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya wrote in a post on Telegram: “It seems we are facing a large-scale prisoner exchange.”

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin strategist and supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said: “There is likely to be a large exchange of political agents with Russia, the US, Germany, Belarus and Slovenia participating.”

“Ukraine has nothing to do with it. Yashin and Kara-Murza, I think, yes, Kagarlitsky no. So far so good. Perhaps we will find out everything later today.”