Russia has agreed to free American prisoners Evan Gershkovich, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan in a multi-country swap, the White House confirmed on Thursday.
Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 for espionage, which U.S. officials have repeatedly said was a false charge. The 32-year-old underwent a hasty, secretive trial and was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
Meanwhile, Whelan has been in prison since 2018. The former Marine, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, was also accused of espionage while traveling in Russia on an American passport, convicted in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years.
Along with Whelan and Gershkovich, journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza were also released as part of the prisoner swap.
“The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia — including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country.”
Biden added, “Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”
The president thanked U.S. allies Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey for their involvement at some level in coordinating the multi-country swap. “This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon. Our alliances make Americans safer,” Biden said.
“And let me be clear: I will not stop working until every American wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world is reunited with their family,” he reaffirmed, adding, “I have no higher priority as president than bringing those Americans home.”
In a briefing from the White House shortly after the prisoners were reportedly back in U.S. custody, Biden said, “We stand for freedom and liberty and justice, not only for our own people, but for others as well. And that’s what all Americans can take pride in what we achieved today.”
The president, flanked on both sides by the families of those prisoners secured, then added that he currently has no plans and no need to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin after the swap occurred.
Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker celebrated the prisoner swap and return of their journalist in a letter posted to the homepage on Thursday.
“Today is a joyous day for the safe return of our colleague Evan Gershkovich, who left a Russian aircraft moments ago in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, as part of a prisoner swap with Russia,” Tucker wrote. “We are grateful to President Biden and his administration for working with persistence and determination to bring Evan home rather than see him shipped off to a Russian work camp for a crime he didn’t commit.”
She commended the efforts of those who “were determined to be as loud as we could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised when his was silent.”
“I am proud of how forcefully the WSJ newsroom and Dow Jones responded to the call of a colleague in extreme distress,” the EIC continued.
Tucker further called out the “bogus case” against Gershkovich, which she said represents a “blow against press freedom” and a “warning to foreign journalists covering the Kremlin.”