Free Republic

President Joe Biden on Thursday hailed the complex prisoner-swap deal with Russia that freed unjustly imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and two others in exchange for prisoners including Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov as a prodigious “feat of diplomacy.” Biden said all four of the recovered prisoners were “convicted in show trials” by Russia “for absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever.” In addition to Gershkovich and Whelan, the freed detainees included Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Muza, a U.S. green-card holder and Washington Post contributor who was sentenced to 25 years in prison...

The Harris-Biden administration is a boon to Putin. A Trump presidency will destroy all that. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelen, both of whom have been languishing in the Soviet, I mean, Russian prisons for years on trumped-up espionage charges, have been released. It appears that their release is part of a larger, multi-nation prisoner swap that includes the exchange of prisoners from Germany, Great Britain, the US, and Slovenia on the one side and Russia and Belarus on the other. The basis for the suspicion about the multi-national, multi-prisoner release is the sudden...

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.

President Joe Biden celebrated the end of the 'brutal ordeal' for Americans 'imprisoned unjustly' inside Russia as he announced a complex prisoner swap and then led a rendition of 'happy birthday' to the teen daughter of a freed prisoner. Biden made a surprise appearance inside the State Dining Room at the White House hours after the historic deal that freed American ex-Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. All were held inside Russia, Whelan since 2018, for 'no legitimate reason whatsoever - none,' Biden said. 'And now they're brutal ordeal is over and they're free.

The disappearance of top Russian generals dating back to September has sparked questions about their whereabouts amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Russian and Ukrainian forces have presented different public findings since the purported death of Russian Admiral Viktor Sokolov, who Kyiv said was one of 34 Russian officers killed in late September by a missile strike executed against the headquarters of the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea. Sokolov was viewed by Ukrainian forces as a high-value target. The lack of visibility by Russia's top general, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, has additionally caused wonderment regarding...

A suspected "Black Widow" female suicide bomber attacked a bus in the southern Russia city of Volgograd today, not far from Sochi, the site of the February 2014 Winter Olympics. The attack is the first such incident in the region in over a year. According to Russia's Federal Investigative Committee, a 30-year-old Dagestani woman named Naida Asiyalova boarded the bus at a stop, then detonated shortly afterward in an explosion that killed at least six people and wounded 32 others. There are thought to have been about 40 people on the bus. Identity documents found near the blast site indicated...