Russia frees American journalist Evan Gershkovich in prisoner swap after 16 months behind bars

NY Post ^ | Alex Oliveira, Olivia Land

[CedarDave]

Imprisoned American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan were freed from prison in Russia Thursday as part of the largest multi-country prisoner swap since the Cold War.

The Americans were among 26 prisoners from the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Russia, and Belarus freed as part of the prisoner exchange overseen by Turkish intelligence, Turkey’s presidency said.

Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich spent nearly 500 days in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison alongside serial killers and other political prisoners.

[Michigander222]

Finally!!!! Paul Whelan lives in my city Novi Michigan! Welcome home!!!!

[John S Mosby]

Why? It was because Putin spoke with Trump, last week. Can read the graffiti on the bathroom walls of DC to know to pivot this way.

Blinken sure as hell didn’t do this? What will Biden say made it happen? Money to Iran? Naw- couldn’t be that.

16 years is from Obamaumao thru Trump and thru xiden’s bammy f’d up delayed 3rd term.

[John S Mosby]

What did Erdogan get from the Russians...hmmmm? As he bleats about intervening with Israel. A supposed NATO member the very mooooosleeem Turks (aka, Nazi collaborators) are at work again.

The Saudis and Emirates will not like this development to the benefit of the Iranians— still trying to take over the Caliphate. No shiiite(s).

[johniegrad]

Why?

Putin lives in fear about what will happen to him if Harris is elected ... os something ... /democrats

[Brown Deer]

Journalists, including Evan Gershkovich, and political activists were released by Russia for spies and a convicted assassin.

Vadim Kraskikov, 58, is a convicted Russian assassin who had been serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder of a former Chechen fighter in a Berlin park.

Vladislav Klyushin, 42, is a Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin. In September 2023, he was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. prison after being convicted of participating in a $93 million insider trading scheme that involved hacking corporate computer networks.

The son of a Russian legislator, Roman Seleznev was convicted in 2016 by a U.S. federal court in Washington State for orchestrating a cyberattack on thousands of American businesses. He infiltrated point-of-sale systems to steal and sell credit card information, leading to a loss of $169 million for financial institutions.

Vadim Konoshchenok, a Russian citizen with alleged connections to Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States on July 13, 2023.

Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva — a Russian couple who posed as Argentine expats living an ordinary life in Slovenia — were sentenced to 19 months each in the Slovenian capital after they pleaded guilty to espionage.

Polish authorities arrested Spanish-Russian national Pablo González, a reporter covering the war in Ukraine for Spanish media, on the Ukrainian border on suspicion of conducting intelligence activities in 2022. He also goes by his Russian name Pavel Rubtsov, Voice of America reported.

In October 2022, Norwegian domestic security authorities arrested a man who entered the country claiming to be a Brazilian academic working on Arctic security issues, on suspicion of being a Russian spy. In Norway, he called himself José Assis Giammaria and worked at a local university in the Arctic city of Tromso. Norwegian investigators later identified him as Mikhail Valerievich Mikushin of Russia.

AMERICANS REMAINING IN RUSSIA

Marc Fogel, a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow who spent 27 years teaching overseas, nearly didn’t return to Russia in 2021 after almost a decade at the school. But he and his wife, Jane, agreed to spend one more year in Moscow before retiring.

Robert Romanov Woodland, 32, who was born in Russia and adopted as a toddler by an American couple in 1993, was sentenced in July to 12½ years in prison on drug charges.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Gordon Black seemed smitten with Russian woman Alexandra Vashchuk, with whom he started a romantic relationship while stationed in South Korea.

Former U.S. Marine Robert Gilman of Massachusetts had been serving 3½ years in Russia — reduced from 4½ — for kicking a police officer while drunk in the western Russian city of Voronezh.

Russia’s Federal Security Service announced the arrest of 33-year-old Ksenia Karelina — a ballerina-turned-esthetician at a Beverly Hills spa in Los Angeles — on treason charges in February, accusing her of collecting funds for a Ukrainian organization that was aiding the Ukrainian military.

Texas resident David Barnes was sentenced in February to 21 years in prison on charges that he abused his two sons in the United States. The allegations had been investigated in Texas, but authorities said they found no grounds for the charges.

Russian-born U.S. citizen Eugene Spector, an executive at a medical-device company, had already been serving a 3½-year prison sentence for bribery when he was handed an additional and more severe charge of espionage in 2023.

Michael Travis Leake — an American expatriate, former paratrooper and frontman of Moscow-based rock band Lovi Noch — was arrested in June 2023 on charges of selling drugs and sentenced a year later to 13 years in a maximum-security prison colony.

[John S Mosby]

demonrats are silent so far. You have a point— if they can get to 4 billionaire Haniyeh of Hamas inside Tehran, not too problematic to take pooty out. He has more layers than Stalin though and.. no jew-ish intermediaries (long gone from the oligarchs).

[lucky american]

Why aren’t they reporting who the Russians got in exchange?

Seems intentional...🤔
I’ve looked and looked for who/ what was exchanged. No article I’ve read seems to mention that small fact.

[Honorary Serb]

In an earlier swap, Paul Whelan was left in prison, but “gay” women’s basketballer Brittney Griner was released!

https://www.newsnationnow.com/prime/paul-whelan-idisintegrating-in-russian-prison-brother/

[johniegrad]

I’m happy to hear of the return of these Americans kidnapped by Russia. And I’m indifferent to any political implications concerning it.

One thing I’ve noticed, though. It seems that whenever a journalist is taken captive, released, or killed doing their job, the media’s coverage is disproportional to what it would be for another person.

I get it. It’s one of their own. But the released Marine was held much longer than the journalist.

Well, it’s a happy day nonetheless. I probably should have just remained silent on this.

[Bob434]

that long? Seemed she was out pretty quickly- i guess time flies-