Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan freed by Russia as part of unprecedented prisoner exchange

Following months of secretive negotiations between Russia and the West and after days of uncertainty and growing speculation, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, both of whom were serving long prison sentences in Russia for espionage, were freed in an exchange on Thursday, Bloomberg has reported.

Though the exchange has not yet been confirmed by other sources, all signs point to the swap of dozens of prisoners being carried out in stages in locations including Russian Baltic exclave Kaliningrad and Turkish capital Ankara.

The first US journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, Gershkovich was detained on suspicion of espionage by the FSB in Yekaterinburg in March 2023 while on assignment for the Wall Street Journal. After spending over a year in pretrial detention in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison, he was last month sentenced to 16 years in prison in a trial that took place behind closed doors.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage in 2018, after a flash drive containing “secret materials” was allegedly found in his hotel room while he was on a two-week visit to Russia. Whelan had always maintained his innocence and categorically rejected accusations of being a spy.

Bloomberg cited an anonymous European official confirming that Russia’s most prominent political prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-UK citizen, was also being freed as part of the wide-ranging deal.

Kara-Murza was an outspoken opposition politician before he was detained for disseminating “false information” about the Russian military, participating in the activities of an “undesirable organisation”, and treason, for which he was ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison, despite his severe health issues.

According to a source that spoke to US broadcaster CBS, the exchange is set to involve a total of 24 prisoners from the United States, Russia, Germany and three other Western countries, 12 of whom are to be released in Russia and taken to Germany. The same source said that Radio Liberty journalist and dual US–Russian citizen Alsu Kurmasheva is one of the prisoners being exchanged by the Kremlin.

Among those expected to be freed by Western governments in exchange 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.

This is the first major prisoner exchange since 2010, when the US pardoned 10 Russian spies, all of whom had pleaded guilty of espionage, and handed them over to Russian officials at Vienna Airport in return for four Russians accused of cooperating with US intelligence.

The last prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States took place in December 2022, when American basketball player Brittney Griner was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

This story is being updated.