Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan set to be launched in US-Russia prisoner swap
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and US Marine Paul Whelan are expected to be released from Russian jail today in a high-stakes prisoner swap negotiated between the Kremlin and Washington.
On July 19, following a trial widely denounced as a sham, Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges.
The same day, US President Joe Biden issued a public statement decrying Gershkovich’s wrongful detention, saying, “Journalism is not a crime.”
Gershkovich, Biden went on, was “targeted by the Russian government because he is a journalist and an American.”
The president said he and his administration would continue “pushing hard” for Gershkovich’s release, and that there was “no higher priority” for him than securing freedom for Gershkovich, Whelan, “and all Americans… held hostage abroad.”
Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who lived in Michigan and worked in corporate security, was visiting Russia in 2019 when he was arrested in a Moscow hotel, also on espionage charges. Exactly a month before Biden’s open letter, Whelan’s brother David, a law librarian who has been very public in agitating for his sibling’s release, sent out an email to supporters and members of the press, in which he did not seem optimistic about the future.
“Paul has been held hostage for 2,000 days by the Russian government,” David wrote. “He has completed one-third of his 16 year sentence. The US government does not seem any further ahead than in those hopeful days of December 2022, when they were immediately going to redouble their efforts… False promises. False hopes.”
On Wednesday, David Whelan published an email he had received from a Russian correspondent at Radio Free Europe, which said, “Hi David, How are you? I am in Germany… But I wrote today about Paul. The Russian Press writes that Paul is not in the colony in Mordovia. When was the last time Paul called? What did you say? What do you think, Maybe he was taken away for a prisoner exchange between the USA and Russia?”
Seeming to confirm the news, Reuters cited a lawyer for Whelan, who said he had been moved from the facility. The wire service also reported that various dissidents and other convicts in Russia had “disappeared” in recent days, leading to speculation of an impending prisoner swap.
Source: independent.co.uk
