Russia and the West are currently conducting the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s.
Russia and Western countries are currently carrying out a significant prisoner exchange. According to the Reuters news agency, there are a total of 26 prisoners.
The Russian investigative journalist group The Insider has listed the following names in the prisoner exchange:
Russia releases: Evan Gershkovich
Journalist Gershkovich’s employer, the Wall Street Journal, considers the Russian accusations against him to be completely fabricated.
Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich was arrested on suspicion of espionage in March 2023. Last month, Russia sentenced Gershkovich to 16 years in prison.
Gershkovich’s arrest was the first time since the collapse of the former Soviet Union that Russia arrested a Western journalist on suspicion of espionage.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Kara-Murza was accused of treason after he criticized Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.
Russia condemned a Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murzan 25 years in prison in April 2024.
He had been held in pretrial detention in Moscow since April 2022 on charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian military, collaborating with an “undesirable organization” and treason.
Paul Whelan
The former soldier has been sitting in Russian prisons for more than five years.
Paul Whelan is a former US Marine. He was arrested in Moscow in 2018 when he flew to Russia for the wedding of a former colleague. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage in 2020.
Ilya Yashin
Jašin had to pay dearly for his YouTube videos.
The Russian dissident Ilya Yašin was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian army in 2022. Jašin had highlighted the atrocities committed by the Russians in Butša on the YouTube video service. Turkey confirmed Yashin’s release.
According to Insider, the following people are also among those to be released:
Alsu Kurmasheva, Andrei Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Rico Krieger, Kevin Lik, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schobel and Herman Moyzhes
The West frees: Vadim Krasikov
Krasikov murdered a man of Chechen background in Berlin, Germany in the middle of the day.
Vadim Krasikov is an FSB assassin. Krasikov was sentenced to life imprisonment of Chechen origin of Zelimhan Hankošvili about a murder for hire in a Berlin park in August 2019. Germany decided to expel two Russian diplomats because of the murder. Turkey confirmed Krasikov’s release.
Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva
A couple of Russian spies pretended to be Argentines.
Spouses Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva were arrested in the capital of Slovenia in late 2022. They presented themselves as citizens of Argentina. Dultseva pretended to be an art gallerist. The Slovenian police revealed that they were Russian spies.
Pavel Rubtsov
Rubtsov pretended to be a Spanish journalist.
Pavel Rubtsov, an agent of Russia’s military intelligence GRU, was arrested by Poland on the Polish-Ukraine border in February 2022. He posed as Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez. He was accused of spying for Russia and abusing his position as a journalist.
The story is completed.