Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva have been released from Russian jails in a secret political prisoner swap, according to reports.

Rumours began to swirl on July 31 that something was up when several prominent Russian opposition prisoners held in Russian jails disappeared and their whereabouts were unknown, according to their families.

“An An-148 plane that could be carrying Russian political prisoners and foreign hostages selected for a massive prisoner swap with US and Germany is on the way from Moscow to Kaliningrad,” journalist Leonid Ragozin reported.

That was followed by social media reports that Gershkovich, who was recently sentenced to 16-years in prison on espionage charges, was free and was on his way to New York on the morning of August 1. A second US journalist, US-Russian Alsu Kurmasheva who was also recently sentenced on charges of providing false information, is also mentioned as one of those released in the deal.

US citizens ex-Marine Paul Whelan and school teacher Marc Fogel are also among those who could be freed, Reuters reports.

There is still no official confirmation of what may be the biggest swap since the Cold War.

Some analysts say that the political prisoner swap deal, that has seen most of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures released from jail, may be a precursor to ceasefire talks expected in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for a second peace summit on July 15 to which Russia and China will be invited as Ukraine inches towards a ceasefire.

The prisoner swap improves the environment ahead of those talks by removing one of the issues that have rankled in Russo-US relations. Moreover, one of the items on the agenda introduced by Zelenskiy at the recent Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17 was the exchange of POWs. With one prisoner swap deal done, another bigger exchange of military prisoners becomes more likely.

Disappearing dissidents 

The exchange with the United States and Germany was reported by multiple media, including journalist Vladislav Postnikov citing sources familiar with the situation. At least seven Russian dissidents were unexpectedly moved from their prisons in recent days, their lawyers reported and Russian media outlet "Agenstvo" reported that at least six special Russian government planes had flown to and from the regions where their prisons were located.

The list of prisoners includes high-profile dissidents such as Vladimir Kara-Murza, human rights activist Oleg Orlov together with Daniil Krinari, who was convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments, as well as former Moscow city councilman Ilya Yashin. Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death in Belarus, but pardoned by Lukashenko on July 30, was included in the exchange.

Others that abruptly went missing in the prison system and are believed to be part of the deal include German-Russian citizen Kevin Lik, convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko, Reuters reports.

Independent Russian media have previously reported that around 10 high-profile detainees were being prepared for the exchange. Postnikov speculates that the Kremlin might try to pressure the likes of Yashin and Orlov into leaving Russia in the prisoner swap, threatening them with withdrawing the deal and keeping other prisoners if they refuse.

The Kremlin has made “great efforts to keep the information inside Russia as much a secret as possible until the last moment,” Politika.Kozlov reported as cited by the Moscow Times.

The political prisoners were swapped for half a dozen Russian prisoners in foreign jails.

The most prominent prisoner on the list of Russians released is the Chechen-born FSB assassin Vadim Krasikov, who has been serving life in Germany for the so-called Tiergarten shooting. Krieger’s death sentence is believed to have been part of the Kremlin’s plans to free Krasikov and use Krieger as a bargaining chip.

The state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti reported that four Russians imprisoned in the United States on charges including cybercrime, money laundering and electronics smuggling disappeared from the Federal Bureau of Inmates database, adding to the speculation that a deal was underway. It named them as Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenko and Vladislav Klyushin.

The U.S. is also holding at least two other Russian nationals, Vladimir Dunaev and Roman Seleznev, convicted of serious cybercrimes, Reuters reported.

Expectations of a deal started to rise after Gershkovich’s trials were brought forward and rapidly over in just three days in July. According to the unspoken rules of prisoner exchanges, the Kremlin won’t do a deal until its victim has been found guilty of their “crime” and given a lengthy prison sentence. President Vladimir Putin needs them to pardon them before their exchange as part of the formalities.

Home sweet home

The swap appears to have released the majority of Russia’s highest profile political prisoners that have been jailed since a brutal and no-holds-barred crackdown on the opposition began after Navalny returned to Russia and was immediately jailed in 2021.

The supporters and family of Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in jail, will be especially happy to hear of his release, if confirmed, as his health was reportedly deteriorating fast and his family were concerned for his life. Kara-Murza nearly died in two separate poisoning incidents, blamed on the Kremlin.

Other U.S. nationals behind bars in Russia include former schoolteacher Marc Fogel, convicted in 2022 for possessing marijuana, which he said he used for medical reasons, Reuters reports.

Many of the individuals being readied for exchange are reportedly connected to the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who died in prison in February.

The deal may have been made possible by Navalny’s death. According to some observers the negotiations for Gershkovich release were discussed at a meeting between US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the start of the year. As the US has few high profile prisoners to exchange, it was suggested that Navalny be included in the deal as Scholz needed a high profile prisoner to sell the release of a Russian murderer from a German jail to the public.

Analysts believe that releasing Navalny, who spent almost a year in a German hospital after the Kremlin attempted to poison him on a domestic flight inside Russia, was something that the Kremlin would not contemplate and had him murdered as soon as it became aware of the proposal. Officially Navalny, Russia’s most prominent political prisoner died of a “blood clot,” an excuse the Russian penal system regularly employs as a reason for unexplained deaths in prison. He appeared in court the day before and was apparently in good health, joking with the prosecutors in video footage of the court session released online.

Aircraft from the special Rossiya Airlines detachment, which serves the Kremlin and the Russian government, were reportedly dispatched to various regions where political prisoners are held. Sources said that these aircraft transported detainees from remote areas to maintain secrecy.

Slovenian broadcaster N1 Slovenija, citing anonymous sources, reported a major exchange involving the US, Germany, Russia, and Belarus was expected "in the coming hours." This development coincided with a court decision in Ljubljana to deport a Russian couple convicted of espionage.

Further fuelling the speculation, records of four Russians imprisoned in the US on charges including cybercrime and money laundering were removed from the Federal Bureau of Inmates database. The White House, while acknowledging efforts to secure the return of detained Americans in Russia, declined to provide specifics. "We do not negotiate in public," said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

The last significant prisoner exchange occurred in December 2022, when Russia released American basketball player Brittney Griner in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout. Following that exchange, US President Joe Biden expressed regret that former Marine Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, was not included in the deal.

The biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War took place in 2010, involving 14 people in total.

 

Freed from Russia:
✹ Evan Gershkovich - US reporter
✹ Vladimir Kara-Murza - opposition leader
✹ Lilia Chanysheva - Former head of Navalny's headquarters in Ufa
✹ Ilya Yashin - opposition leader
✹ Ksenia Fadeeva - Former coordinator of Navalny's headquarters in Tomsk
✹ Andrei Pivovarov
✹ Paul Whelan - US marine
✹ Alsu Kurmasheva - US/Russian reporter
✹ Oleg Orlov - Memorial Chairman
✹ Sasha Skocilenko - artist
✹ Dieter Voronin
✹ Kevin Lick - German national 
✹ Rico Krieger - German national 
✹ Patrick Schöbel
✹ Herman Moyzhes
✹ Vadim Ostanin

Released to Russia:
✹ Vadim Krasikov (from Germany)
✹ Artem Dulcev (from Slovenia) - spy 
✹ Anna Dulceva (from Slovenia) - spy
✹ Mikhail Mikushin (from Norway)
✹ Pavel Rubtsov (from Poland)
✹ Roman Seleznev (from the USA)
✹ Vladislav Klyushin (from the USA) - developer of a media monitoring system for the Kremlin
✹ Vadim Konoshenko (from the USA)

In mid-July, former Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief and Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov issued an appeal to foreign leaders to help exchange political prisoners. It included 11 names, six of which were are in included in the list of the released. Russia will still have an "exchange fund" in any case. Neither Yevgenia Berkovich nor Svetlana Petriychuk, whom Muratov called for to be released, are candidates

This story has been updated to include more details of the deal.