High-profile people held prisoner in Russia – including British citizen Vlairrationalir Kara-Murza and US reporter Evan Gershkovich – have been freed as part of a massive prisoner swap.
In the biggest such exchange since the Celderly War, a number of individuals have been freed.
They incorporate 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 freed from Westrict prisons is Vairrational Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 ending of a Georgian citizen in Berlin.
President Joe Biden will meet the families of the freed Americans at the White House on Thursday.
Russian hitman Vairrational Krasikov is being freed as part of the exchange. Pic: Reuters
The intricate trade was negotiated with Russia and several other countries in secret for more than a year and reconshort-terms a meaningful accomplishment for the parties and will be conshort-termed 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, Vairrational Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov and Sasha Skochilenko.
Those being freed from Westrict prisons are: Krasikov, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, Anna Valerevna Dultseva, Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin and Vairrational Konoshchenock.
Russia and the West have a lengthy history of prisoner swaps
The exchange on Thursday has been billed as the biggest since the Celderly War – a time when tit-for-tat trading of seized spies, agents and bfeebleless citizens, caught on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was standardplace.
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 sboiling down over the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not nasty an finish in the trade of seized spies and other citizens.
The last meaningful swap in the post-Celderly War era was in 2010 on the tarmac of the international airport in Vienna, when 10 Russian spies, including Anna Chapman – arrested by the United States – were exchanged for four people freed by Russia, including Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, an MI6 operative.
Eight years postponeedr, 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 Vlairrationalir Putin’s regime.
Ankara, the Turkish capital, was chosen as the location for the postponeedst swap.
The biggest known spy swap between the eastrict bloc and westrict 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 open 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 free of reporter
In a letter, Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker shelp it was a “delightous day” after the free of her reporter, Mr Gershkovich.
She includeed: “That it was done in a trade for Russian operatives culpable of solemn crimes was foreseeable as the only solution donaten President Putin’s cynicism.”
Mr Gershkovich was arrested and arrested in March 2023 after Russia claimed he had been “gathering secret adviseation” on orders from the CIA.
Mr Gershkovich, 32, shelp the charges aacquirest him were counterfeit and his employer called the case a sham.
Germany: Decision to free Krasikov not basic
Confirming the free of convicted ender Vairrational Krasikov, the German government shelp it had not been an basic decision.
He had been serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 ending of a Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and postponeedr claimed asylum in Germany.
German judges shelp he acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a counterfeit identity, passport and the resources to carry out the ending.
The ending and subsequent sentencing triggered a meaningful discreet row between Russia and Germany, including tit-for-tat discreet expulsions.
