High-profile people held prisoner in Russia – including British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza and US reporter Evan Gershkovich – have been freed as part of a massive prisoner swap.
In the biggest such exchange since the Cold War, a number of individuals have been freed.
They include Mr Kara-Murza, dual UK-Russian citizen, Wall Street Journal reporter Mr Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan.
Some two dozen people from countries including Russia, the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus have been moved.
Among those being released from Western prisons is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin.
President Joe Biden will meet the families of the released Americans at the White House on Thursday.
Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov is being freed as part of the exchange. Pic: Reuters
The complex trade was negotiated with Russia and several other countries in secret for more than a year and represents a major accomplishment for the parties and will be presented by the Biden administration as a marquee foreign policy success in an election year.
Those being freed from Russian custody are: Mr Kara-Murza, Mr Gershkovich, Mr Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov and Sasha Skochilenko.
Those being freed from Western prisons are: Krasikov, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, Anna Valerevna Dultseva, Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin and Vadim Konoshchenock.
Russia and the West have a long history of prisoner swaps
The exchange on Thursday has been billed as the biggest since the Cold War – a time when tit-for-tat trading of captured spies, agents and innocent citizens, caught on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was commonplace.
A well-known location for spy swaps was the Glienicke bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam in what was East Germany.
It was the site of a 1962 exchange – depicted in the move Bridge of Spies – between KGB colonel Rudolf Abel and Gary Powers, the pilot of an American spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean an end in the trade of captured spies and other citizens.
The last significant swap in the post-Cold War era was in 2010 on the tarmac of the international airport in Vienna, when 10 Russian spies, including Anna Chapman – detained by the United States – were exchanged for four people released by Russia, including Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, an MI6 operative.
Eight years later, Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the cathedral city of Salisbury in a botched assassination attempt carried out by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Ankara, the Turkish capital, was chosen as the location for the latest swap.
The biggest known spy swap between the eastern bloc and western powers took place in 1985 after a three-year period of talks. It involved 25 people imprisoned in East Germany who were exchanged for four East Europeans held by the allies.
Mr Kara-Murza, an opposition politician in Russia, was jailed for 25 years on charges after making public remarks which were critical of the Kremlin.
His arrest in April 2022, weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, came as authorities ratcheted up their crackdown on dissent to levels unseen since Soviet times.
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Evan Gershkovich. File pic: Reuters
‘Joyous day’ for release of reporter
In a letter, Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker said it was a “joyous day” after the release of her reporter, Mr Gershkovich.
She added: “That it was done in a trade for Russian operatives guilty of serious crimes was predictable as the only solution given President Putin’s cynicism.”
Mr Gershkovich was arrested and detained in March 2023 after Russia claimed he had been “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA.
Mr Gershkovich, 32, said the charges against him were false and his employer called the case a sham.
Germany: Decision to release Krasikov not easy
Confirming the release of convicted killer Vadim Krasikov, the German government said it had not been an easy decision.
He had been serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.
German judges said he acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport and the resources to carry out the killing.
The killing and subsequent sentencing triggered a major diplomatic row between Russia and Germany, including tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.