Behind the scenes of the most troubled U.S.-Russia relationship in decades, the Biden administration closed a stunning deal Thursday, freeing wrongfully detained Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsa Kurmasheva, and a dozen Russian opposition activists.
The elaborate exchange involving 24 prisoners held in six countries unfolded on the tarmac of the Ankara Airport in Turkey’s capital city, where six planes delivered and collected the swapped detainees. It was the largest and most complex prisoner exchange between Washington and Moscow since the end of the Cold War.
The long-negotiated liberation was celebrated close to midnight at Andrews AFB in Maryland when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris greeted the released captives on the darkened runway with family of the former detainees anxiously awaiting their arrival.
A gaunt-looking Whelan emerged first with a handshake for President Joe Biden and an embrace of Vice President Kamala Harris, followed by the Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich, who hugged both White House leaders before being joyously embraced by his parents and sister.
Biden hailed the release of the Americans and Russian opposition activists as evidence of the importance of U.S. leadership and allied unity. The successful resolution of the wrongful detentions by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime burnished Biden’s diplomatic and negotiating credentials and underscored his administration’s commitment to European political and security alliances.
President Joe Biden hailed the release of the Americans and Russian opposition activists as evidence of the importance of U.S. leadership and allied unity. The successful resolution of the wrongful detentions by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime burnished Biden’s diplomatic and negotiating credentials and underscored his administration’s commitment to European political and security alliances.
“The deal that made this possible was a feat of diplomacy — and friendship,” Biden said as he announced that the three American citizens and British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza were on their way home. “For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter. And today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world — friends you can trust, work with and depend upon.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate since Biden’s July 21 announcement that he was withdrawing from the 2024 race, also came in for praise from national security officials for her behind-the-scenes work at the Munich Security Conference in February. It was at the annual Western defense and intelligence gathering that word spread of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony.
Harris consoled Navalny’s widow Yulia who attended the conference to lobby for Western help in freeing her husband, Putin’s No. 1 adversary whom the Kremlin had poisoned in August 2020 and arrested upon his return from German medical treatment in early 2021.
On the sidelines of the Munich gathering, Harris also initiated talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose agreement was necessary to release convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov and facilitate the constellation of exchanges that occurred Thursday. Repatriation of Krasikov, a hitman for the Russian FSB intelligence agency jailed in Germany and serving a life sentence, was Putin’s most fervent demand in the monthslong negotiations on the exchanges.
At a Moscow airport, Russian state-run television filmed Putin greeting Krasikov with a smile and a bear hug in a demeanor more appropriate to congratulating a sports star. The Russian president also bestowed a huge bouquet of flowers on a tearful Anna Dultseva as she and her husband and two children descended to the tarmac. Anna and Artem Dultsev settled in Slovenia in 2017, posing as Argentinians operating small businesses in the Alpine country. They were arrested in 2022 and charged with espionage for servicing a network of undercover Russian agents throughout Europe. On Wednesday, a court in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana sentenced the couple to 19 months, then released them for time served, in apparent preparation for sending them to Moscow in the Thursday exchanges.
In all, eight Russian citizens were freed and delivered to their turbulent homeland. In addition to Krasikov and the Dultsevs, a prisoner held in Norway and one in Poland joined three other Russians released from U.S. prisons.
While Biden accrued accolades for his diplomatic and security team resolving the thorniest of wrongful detention cases involving U.S. citizens, one American displeased by the swaps was Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.
The former president took to his social media site to blast the Biden administration, accusing the White House of executing a bad deal.
“How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash?” Trump asked, offering no praise for the release of fellow Americans from months and years of brutal prison life.
Former Obama administration adviser David Axelrod told CNN that Trump’s criticism of the uplifting news was “a bad look for him” on a day when Americans were celebrating.
“This is a great deal for America. But Donald Trump can’t stand it because he’s not getting credit for it,” Axelrod said. “It is a tribute to diplomacy and alliances and the things (Biden) believes in, and that most Americans believe in.”
Trump had boasted last month that he would be able to win Gershkovich’s freedom as soon as he won the presidential election in November.
“Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, will do that for me, and I don’t believe he’ll do it for anyone else,” said Trump, who has also indicated he would pull U.S. support from Ukraine to leave it vulnerable to Putin’s attempt to conquer the ex-Soviet neighbor.
Russian analysts flooding the airwaves as the released prisoners were airborne enroute home speculated on the Kremlin leader’s motives for agreeing to the releases so close to the U.S. election. Julia Ioffe, a Russian-born American journalist writing for major U.S. publications, told another CNN panel that Putin’s snub of Trump’s overture was intended to remind the former president that he is the junior partner in their dubious alliance.
Foreign affairs media praised the Biden administration’s success in pulling off a complicated swap of wrongfully detained persons for Kremlin spies, hackers and the assassin Krasikov.
“Lame-duck periods are meant to be inconsequential, but on Thursday afternoon at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden got a chance to present one of the most important breakthroughs of his time in office,” Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal wrote of the dramatic swap of prisoners described as “pawns in a game of global 3D chess.”
Gerschkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Moscow, was arrested in the provincial city of Yekaterinburg in March 2023 and charged with espionage for trying to investigate the fate of Russian troops sent to fight in Putin’s war against Ukraine. Deaths and injuries among the Russian invaders have been tracked by the British Defense Ministry since Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The latest UK Ministry of Defense tally of Russian dead and seriously injured is estimated at 355,000.
U.S. Marine Corps veteran Whelan, 54, was the longest-held of the three Americans, having been arrested in December 2018 while attending a friend’s wedding in Russia. He was charged with espionage and convicted in 2019, when Trump was president.
Whelan’s family criticized the Trump administration’s reluctance to back their efforts to win his freedom, with the exception of then-U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman they praised as engaged.
“Early on, we were discouraged from speaking out about Paul’s case,” they wrote. “Those first years were hard when the Trump Administration ignored Paul’s wrongful detention, and it was media attention that helped to finally create critical mass and awareness within the U.S. government.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had attempted to win Whelan’s freedom during the tense negotiations over the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was arrested for carrying cannabis-derived oil cartridges in her luggage. Griner was released in December 2022 in exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Kurmasheva, a Russian-American, was a journalist based in Prague for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She was detained in June 2023 after a visit to her mother and charged with disseminating false information about Russia’s military. She was sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Other Americans still imprisoned in Russia include Pennsylvania teacher Marc Fogel arrested for having medical marijuana in his possession, musician and former paratrooper Michael Travis Leake sentenced to 13 years on drug charges, Army staff sergeant Gordon Black arrested in Vladivostok earlier this year after a Russian girlfriend accused him of stealing, and Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American ballerina arrested on a visit to family in January and accused of donating to Ukrainian war victims.
Thanks again Carol for your perceptive recap of this truly breathtaking exchange. So much credit goes to Biden and the negotiating team as well as to staunch allies and to our nation maintaining relationships. So heartening in a sometimes bleak outlook.