Russia frees WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich in a major prisoner swap, reports say

• Russia freed two political prisoners in a major exchange with the US, Bloomberg and others reported.

• The swap was said to involve the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and the former US Marine Paul Whelan.

• Speculation about an exchange had swirled in recent days as several prisoners were moved.

Russia freed the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and the former US Marine Paul Whelan in an exchange with the US, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

It cited people familiar with the situation who asked for anonymity to discuss matters that have yet to be made public.

Gershkovich and Whelan were on their way to undisclosed locations outside Russia, the outlet reported.

It said Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British anti-war activist, was also part of the deal.

It said they'd been exchanged for Russian prisoners being held by the US and unnamed allied nations.

Other outlets, including ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News later reported an exchange as well, citing an unnamed senior official in President Joe Biden's administration.

Long road to freedom

As of Thursday, Gershkovich had been in Russian detention for 491 days since his arrest at a steakhouse in Yekaterinburg.

He was charged with espionage and held in pre-trial detention for more than a year. He was convicted in July.

Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal, and the US government said the allegation of espionage was ludicrous.

Many analysts said Gershkovich was most likely being held to bring about a prison exchange to retrieve detained Russians, as part of so-called hostage diplomacy.

Whelan was arrested in Moscow in December 2018, also on espionage charges. He was given a 16-year prison sentence in May 2020, Reuters reported.

In an interview with the BBC in December, Whelan said he felt "abandoned" by the US after he was left out of an earlier swap.

(Whelan also has UK, Canadian, and Irish citizenship.)

Vanished from their cells

Speculation around a prisoner swap had intensified in recent days as several imprisoned dissidents were moved from their penal colonies this week, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian journalist serving 25 years in Russia for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

Whelan's lawyer told the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday that she didn't know where Whelan was and that the colony administration hadn't responded to her request.

The Moscow Times on Wednesday also reported that Russia was preparing for the swap, citing a source familiar with the planning.

The Russian state outlet RIA Novosti said that it spoke to Gershkovich's lawyer after the Bloomberg report, who couldn't immediately comment.

Other side of the bargain

State-run outlet TASS, meanwhile, said it verified that Russian prisoners in the US had been removed from the FBI electronic database, which suggested a prisoner swap had indeed occurred.

TASS said the four prisoners in question were Alexander Vinnik, Vladislav Klyushin, Vadim Konoschenko, and Maxim Marchenko.

Vinnik pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit money laundering related to his role in operating a cryptocurrency exchange called BTC-e from 2011 to 2017.

Klyushin was sentenced to nine years in prison last year for his role in a $93 million hack-to-trade scheme. Konoschenko was arrested last year after being caught smuggling US-made technologies and ammunition into Russia.

Last month, Marchenko was sentenced to three years in prison for illicitly procuring large quantities of US-made, military-grade microelectronics for Russian entities.

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