Largest prisoner swap since end of Cold War expected imminently

By far the biggest post-Cold War prisoner exchange between Russia and the West is expected to take place on Thursday, with all signs suggesting that the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the Turkish capital Ankara are the two principal locations where the expected swap of dozens of high-profile political prisoners will take place.

Among those expected to be released are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March 2023 on suspicion of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison last month, and former US Marine Paul Whelan, who has been serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage since 2018.

Over the past three days, growing numbers of Russian political prisoners have been reported missing by their lawyers following their sudden transfer from penal colonies and pretrial detention centres.

Media speculation reached fever pitch on Tuesday evening when prominent opposition politician Ilya Yashin was also reported to have been transferred, which was further ramped up by the announcement that Vladimir Kara-Murza, perhaps Russia’s most famous surviving political prisoner, had also been unexpectedly moved.

Among those expected to be freed by Western governments in exchange for what The Moscow Times reported was likely to be between 20–30 political prisoners, are Anna and Artyom Dultsev, two deep-cover Russian spies who were convicted of espionage in Slovenia on Wednesday, and Vadim Krasikov, a colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for the assassination of a former Chechen rebel commander in a Berlin park in 2019.

Multiple Russian news outlets reported on Wednesday that an Antonov An-148, an aircraft that has been used for prisoner exchanges in the past, flying from Moscow landed in Kaliningrad at 8:35am Moscow time on Wednesday morning, further fuelling speculation that Russia’s border with the EU would be where the exchange will take place.