The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place.
The trade followed years of secretive back-channel negotiations despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
What to know:
- Who is Evan Gershkovich? He is a Wall Street Journal reporter who was accused of spying and arrested in March 2023. The Federal Security Service alleged he was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets but provided no evidence to support the accusation. Washington designated him as wrongfully detained.
- Who is Paul Whelan? Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, was jailed in Russia on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are baseless.
- Who else is released? The deal was the latest in a series of prisoner swaps negotiated between Russia and the U.S. in the past two years, but the first to require significant concessions from other countries, with seven nations agreeing to give up 24 prisoners.
