The largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War took place on Thursday, with the release of 24 people of various nationalities, the United States confirmed.
The White House said 16 of the released prisoners are back in Europe and the United States. Among them is the journalist from the Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich.
In exchange, eight Russians were released from prisons in the United States, Norway, Germany, Poland and Slovenia, including individuals accused of intelligence activities.
The exchange took place at Evan Gershkovichrto Airport in Ankara, the capital of Türkiye.
In addition to the journalist, two other US citizens were released: Navy veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.
“Their brutal ordeal is over”said US President Joe Biden, surrounded by some of the relatives of the released prisoners.
It was a “feat of diplomacy and friendship,” Biden said, adding that among the 16 prisoners released from Russian jails were five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country.
Russian citizens
Eight Russian citizens are expected to be returned to Russia from the United States, Norway, Slovenia, Poland and Germany, several of them with suspected links to Russian intelligence.
One of the Russians reportedly released is Vadim Krasikov, identified by German officials as a colonel in Russia’s FSB intelligence service who was sentenced to life in prison for the 2019 murder of a Kremlin opponent in a Berlin park.
And in the exchange, the Russian-Spanish journalist Pablo González, who was sent to Russia, was also released.
German citizen Rico Krieger, sentenced to death in Belarus and later pardoned by President Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian political prisoner Ilya Yashin have also been released, the Turkish government said.
The Turkish presidency said all prisoners were transferred to safe locations under the supervision of Turkish security officials and then put on planes to their respective destination countries..
The exchange comes after days of speculation about a major prisoner swap between several countries, which intensified after several dissidents and journalists jailed in Russia were moved from their cells to unknown locations.
They include Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Kremlin opponent with dual Russian and British citizenship, and veteran human rights activist Oleg Orlov, who could be among those freed.
Historical exchange
Image source,AFP
The latest high-profile prisoner exchange It took place in December 2022, when American basketball star Brittney Griner was exchanged on the tarmac at Abu Dhabi airport for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been held in the US for 12 years.
And the most recent exchange of comparable, though smaller, magnitude took place in Vienna in 2010, when 10 Russian spies detained in the United States were exchanged for four suspected double agents detained in Russia.
One of them was Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer who was later poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, UK, in 2018.
Tensions between Moscow and the West have been high in recent years, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
How can countries reach agreements when relations are so bad?
Image source,AFP
Analysis by Gordon Corera, BBC Security Correspondent.
It may seem surprising that such an exchange is being organised when relations between Russia and the West are so bad, in the midst of the war in Ukraine.
But the reality is that they have always happened. At the height of the Cold War, there were spy exchanges between Washington and Moscow, often in Berlin, as in the famous film “Bridge of Spies.”
And over the past two years, even as Ukraine and Russia are locked in a war, they have also been able to organize large-scale prisoner exchanges, as Israel and Hamas did at one point.
The reason is simple. Both sides have something – or someone – that the other side wants, and so they end up negotiating a deal.
That’s not to say such deals are easy, and when relations are strained, negotiations can be more difficult because neither side wants the outcome to be seen as a victory for the other.
But intelligence agencies are accustomed to opening the back channels necessary to conduct these delicate negotiations out of the public eye.
Source: BBC
