Evan Gershkovich, others arrive in U.S. after landmark prisoner swap

The presidential motorcade departed Joint Base Andrews about a quarter past midnight, according to a White House pool report. Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker said earlier that Evan Gershkovich would be flying on from Maryland to Texas. She did not specify where, but Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio has a prisoner reintegration program. The facility has treated other freed detainees, including WNBA player Brittney Griner, who was held by Russia, and Travis King, who was held by North Korea.

As he welcomed the Americans, President Biden appeared to give a U.S. flag pin from his own lapel to former Marine Paul Whelan. Whelan was arrested by Russian authorities in December 2018 and convicted on an espionage charge that he and the U.S. government long maintained was a farce. He spent more than 2,043 days in detention, his family said.

Responding to a reporter’s question, President Biden dismissed the idea that the prisoner swap could incentivize unfriendly nations to detain Americans for their own advantage, which was a key point of criticism of the exchange deal. “I don’t buy this idea that you’re … going to let these people rot in jail because other people may be captured,” he said.

Paul Whelan’s sister, Alsu Kurmasheva’s husband and daughters, and Evan Gershkovich’s parents, sister and brother-in-law were in attendance at the Air Force base. Also there were members of the Wall Street Journal staff, including editor in chief Emma Tucker.

Vice President Harris also addressed reporters, telling them it was a “very good night” and stressing the “importance of building alliances and building the strength that we have through diplomacy.”

“This is an example of the strength of American leadership in bringing nations together,” she added.

President Biden was asked whether he had a message for Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Stop,” was his reply. He did not elaborate. To the American people, he said, “There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together — nothing, nothing, nothing.”

President Biden approached reporters after greeting the three freed Americans. When asked what his message was to them and their families, he said, “Welcome home.” He added: “My dad used to say that family is the beginning, the middle and the end. And it really is. It’s about who we are. It’s about who we are as a country.”

The plane arrived about 11:45 p.m., with Paul Whelan exiting first, followed by Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva. All greeted President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva have landed on American soil. President Biden and Vice President Harris were there to greet them at Joint Base Andrews. The three reunited with loved ones on the tarmac, beaming, hugging and posing for photographs. It is their first time home since they were detained in Russia.

Former president Donald Trump criticized the recent multilateral prison swap with Russia that involved wrongly detained Americans, suggesting without evidence that President Biden’s administration paid an unjustifiable price for the exchange.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan, however, confirmed during Thursday’s White House press briefing that no money was exchanged and no sanctions were loosened to facilitate the multilateral deal with Russia.

The family of Austin Tice, a freelance journalist and contributor to The Washington Post who was abducted in Syria in 2012, said Thursday that they were “relieved and overjoyed” about the release of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

In a statement released by the National Press Club, the Tice family said it was “especially uplifting” to know the United States partnered with other governments to make the prisoner swap deal.

Jane, Ethan and Sam Fogel, the wife and sons of American teacher Marc Fogel, who is serving a 14-year sentence in a Russian prison, issued a statement following Thursday’s landmark prisoner swap, saying their loved one had been “left behind.”

Fogel was detained by Russian officials in August 2021 and charged with smuggling a small quantity of cannabis into the country. The medical marijuana was prescribed in the United States for back pain but was banned in Russia.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva on Thursday. In a minute-long video of the call posted on X, Blinken recalled telling Whelan during a previous conversation that he hoped the next time they spoke would be “under very different circumstances.” Blinken then added, “I am so glad that that’s the case today.”

Host Martine Powers speaks with national security reporter Shane Harris about the buildup to this prisoner swap, how it unfolded in these final hours and what the United States gave up to make it happen.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the prisoner exchange “encouraging news,” adding that they would continue pushing for the release of Americans still detained in Russia.

“Their unjust captivity will be an enduring reminder of the Russian government’s longstanding fear of free people and the free press,” the GOP leaders said in a joint statement Thursday.

Before Thursday’s prisoner swap, 46 U.S. nationals were being held hostage or wrongfully detained around the world, according to the Foley Foundation, a nonprofit that works to prevent hostage-taking abroad. U.S. detainees continue to await their release in 16 countries, the foundation’s data shows, including five remaining Americans who have been held in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Støre said it was important for Norway to “contribute in such cooperation with our close allies,” the Associated Press reported, citing a statement.

The prime minister wrote on X that he spoke Thursday with President Biden, who he said “expressed gratitude for Norway’s contribution to today’s prisoner exchange.”

“Families will now be reunited with their loved ones, who have spent years in Russian captivity,” Støre wrote. “We agreed this is a powerful example of the importance of friends and allies.”

The sweeping exchange took place in Turkey, which acted as a mediator between Russia and the West, whose relationship has been at its lowest point since the Cold War. The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) said in a statement Thursday that it coordinated the swap.

American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was freed from Russia in a 2022 prisoner swap after being sentenced to 9½ years for possessing vape cartridges containing less than one gram of cannabis oil, called it a “great day” in brief comments after the United States defeated Belgium in an Olympic basketball game in Lille, France.

“Head over heels happy for the families right now,” Griner said. “Any day that Americans come home is a win.”

The lawyer for Spanish-Russian national Pablo González, who was released by Poland on Thursday as part of the swap, told The Washington Post he was “part of an exchange between journalists” and has been transferred to Russia.

The lawyer, Gonzalo Boyé, said his client’s only crime was “to criticize the Polish government” in his reporting, describing the case against González as “fabricated.”

For 491 days, Evan Gershkovich’s family had been hoping for his release. On Thursday, their wish came true — and now the Wall Street Journal reporter’s loved ones say they “can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close.”

“Most important now is taking care of Evan and being together again,” the family wrote in a statement Thursday. “No family should have to go through this, and so we share relief and joy today with Paul and Alsu’s families.”

China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, Vietnam, Iran and Israel are among the leading jailers of journalists around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The release of American journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva on Thursday was widely celebrated across the United States and beyond, though the landmark prisoner swap renewed calls for other imprisoned journalists to be freed.

On Thursday afternoon, President Biden spoke individually with the leaders of multiple countries involved in the prisoner exchange, thanking them for their partnership in the complex deal. Biden talked with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to a White House readout.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the prisoner exchange as a difficult decision that took months of secret negotiations. Scholz spoke Thursday night from the airport in Cologne, where he was due to meet with Russian prisoners and Germans released under the swap.

“No one took this decision lightly,” Scholz said of the swap.

Before boarding Air Force Two in Houston, Vice President Harris said she and President Biden had engaged in “complex diplomatic negotiations” over several years to bring home the detained Americans.

“We never stopped fighting for their release,” she said. “And today, in spite of all of their suffering, it gives me great comfort to know that their horrible ordeal is finally over.”

Two of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s closest associates, Ivan Zhdanov and Leonid Volkov — top members of his political team — were in high spirits on the road to Germany. They were preparing to reunite with members of Navalny’s team and other political prisoners freed by Russia.

In a video, Zhdanov called it “a historic day.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed eight freed Russians, including convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov, as they landed at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, according to footage released by state television.

A wide red carpet and rows of honor guards greeted the former prisoners as they stepped out of a special government plane.

A prison census from the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 320 journalists behind bars last year, the organization said Thursday as it celebrated the release of Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva.

The figure was the second highest number CPJ has ever recorded, the organization said as it called for the release of other imprisoned journalists.

Alsu Kurmasheva is a talker, her voice a familiar companion in her native Tatarstan, where her news reports were once beamed from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s headquarters in Prague.

Online, she has lately been teaching Crimean Tatar, a Turkic language — one of seven, along with Russian, Czech, English, Turkish, Volga Tatar and Bashkir, that she speaks fluently.

Voice of America, a news outlet the American government funds, celebrated the release of Alsu Kurmasheva — who works for fellow U.S.-funded outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — along with Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Washington Post Opinion contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza.

“Their unjust imprisonment highlights the urgent need to redouble efforts to protect the safety of journalists,” said a VOA statement.

The Wall Street Journal newsroom gathered in applause after executive editor Emma Tucker announced the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich on Thursday, according to a video posted on X by Wall Street Journal senior executive producer Vaughn Sterling.

In the video, Gershkovich’s face is projected on a large screen with the caption #IStandWithEvan.

Marc Fogel

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.

Former president Donald Trump criticized the deal for the prisoners, saying it sets a bad precedent in a post on Truth Social.

“I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING — and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse. They are extorting the United States of America,” reads the post.

Trump portrays himself as a master negotiator despite little evidence to that effect.

European Council President Charles Michel said he welcomes “the release of 16 people unjustly jailed” in Russia. In a post on X on Thursday, he thanked “all those, also in Europe, who helped to make the diplomatic deal possible” and said the European Union would “continue supporting and standing for all those illegally detained in Russia and elsewhere.”

Allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who unexpectedly died in a remote Arctic prison in February, welcomed the swap that freed several of his allies but expressed bitterness that Putin’s main political rival did not live to see freedom.

Weeks before the prisoner swap, two hasty trials were completed in Russia on the same day, both involving American journalists. It was the first public sign that Russia might be preparing for a prisoner exchange.

President Biden shared a photo on X that showed Americans who were imprisoned in Russia, including Evan Gershkovich, aboard a plane back to the United States.

“After enduring unimaginable suffering and uncertainty, the Americans detained in Russia are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families,” he wrote.

Freed Russian dissidents and activists have been able to contact their families after being swapped in a landmark exchange in Turkey and are heading to Cologne, in western Germany, where they are expected to be greeted by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Relatives of Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko and Andrei Pivovarov told Russian media they were able to contact their family members as the group was departing from the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Vice President Harris spoke Thursday with Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, about the release of 16 people from Russia, including Russian political prisoners who worked with Navalny. Harris praised Navalnaya for continuing her late husband’s work, according to a readout of the call distributed by the White House. The vice president, who met with Navalnaya in February, hours after news broke of her husband’s death in a Russian prison colony, also told her that she would “continue to stand with those fighting for freedom in Russia and around the world.”

Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva can be expected to be seen “on American soil” when they land Thursday night at Joint Base Andrews, where President Biden and Vice President Harris will greet them, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

Vladimir Kara-Murza will travel to Germany to meet his family there before returning to the United States, Sullivan said.

The Kremlin confirmed the release of 13 prisoners, saying in a statement that President Vladimir Putin has issued pardons to 13 people freed by Russia on Thursday.

The Kremlin specifically extended gratitude to Putin’s close ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for pardoning Rico Krieger, a German citizen convicted of terrorism in Belarus and sentenced to death. Krieger was then added to Russia’s side of the exchange.

The Biden administration had been working on a swap that would have included the release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his death, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“In fact, on the very day that he died, I saw Evan’s parents, and I told them that the president was determined to get this done, even in light of that tragic news, and that we were going to work, day and night, to get ... this done,” Sullivan said.

Former president Barack Obama thanked President Biden and Vice President Harris on X, as well as U.S. allies, for their work in freeing the Americans.

“It’s a tremendous diplomatic achievement, and we’re grateful that they’ll be back home with their families where they belong,” Obama wrote.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the first high-ranking Russian official to comment on the sweeping prisoner exchange, said he would like to see “traitors of Russia rot in prison or die in jail,” but added that it is sometimes more beneficial to “get our people who worked for the country, for the Fatherland, for all of us, out.”

“And let the traitors now feverishly pick new names and actively disguise themselves under the witness protection program,” he added in a Telegram post.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributing columnist, was released Thursday in the largest prisoner exchange since the height of the Cold War. Kara-Murza, who had been imprisoned in Russia since April 2022, was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for commentary in May.

Asked about his phone conversations earlier Thursday with the Americans formerly detained in Russia, President Biden said he told them: “Welcome almost home.”

Paul Beckett, an assistant editor at the Wall Street Journal, posted a photo online of his colleague Evan Gershkovich, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and former Marine Paul Whelan holding up an American flag in what looks like a meeting room with food and coffee cups.

The photo has a watermark reading “Photo Property of U.S. Government” in the lower right corner.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said in a brief statement that he welcomed the release of Paul Whelan, a citizen of Ireland, Canada, the United States and Britain.

Harris said he spoke with the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, “who confirmed the news” of Whelan’s release. Harris thanked Ireland’s diplomatic and consular staff in Russia and in Ireland for “their years of tireless work on this case.”

While the Justice Department welcomes the return of Americans unjustly held abroad, such swaps have complicated global implications, according to a former official who has worked on detainee issues and prisoner exchanges.

The multination prisoner swap with Russia has been in the works for “many, many months,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters early Friday in Tokyo, declaring the deal a victory for diplomacy as he said that the three U.S. citizens in the deal were “strong of sprit.”

Blinken spoke to Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva on Thursday while they were in Turkey at the Ankara airport, shortly after they were freed from Russian custody.

Germany said it did not take the decision to release convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov “lightly.” The government said its interest in enforcing his sentence stood against the “freedom, physical well-being and — in some cases — ultimately the lives of innocent people imprisoned in Russia and unjustly held political prisoners.”

“Our obligation to protect German citizens and solidarity with the United States were important motivators,” the statement said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined other world leaders in celebrating the detainees’ release, naming Vladimir Kara-Murza, Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich specifically.

“We will continue to call on Russia to uphold freedom of political expression,” Starmer tweeted.

Gershkovich is en route to Texas, according to a memo sent to the Wall Street Journal newsroom by Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker and seen by The Washington Post.

Upon being freed, Americans who were held hostage or imprisoned abroad are often brought to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, for rehabilitation. The Journal did not confirm whether Gershkovich was heading to the medical center.

President Biden thanked several allied countries for their help in achieving a landmark prisoner exchange in which Russia agreed to release 16 prisoners: four Americans, five Germans and seven Russians.

President Biden, speaking from the White House, said negotiations to free the prisoners came “with tough calls and there are never any guarantees.”

“There’s nothing that matters more to me,” he said. “I’m protecting Americans at home and abroad, and so we’ll continue to work for the release of all wrongfully detained Americans around the world.”

President Biden said the freed prisoners are out of Russia and will return home soon, in brief remarks delivered at the White House.

“They’re out of Russia early today,” Biden said. “They’re flown to Turkey, and soon they’ll be wheels up on their way home to see their families.”

Biden said he has spoken to the American prisoners’ families via telephone from the Oval Office.

All told, he said, Russia is releasing 16 prisoners: four Americans, five Germans, seven Russians.

Almar Latour, the chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, said in a joint statement with Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker that Gershkovich was “free and on his way home” following his “491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations and a fake trial as part of an all-out assault on the free press and truth.”

Latour and Tucker condemned “in the strongest terms” Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose regime, they said, “orchestrated” the ordeal faced by Gershkovich.

Thursday’s prisoner swap, which saw American journalists and a security consultant, and a group of some of Russia’s most prominent dissidents and political prisoners, exchanged for a Russian group including a state assassin, spies and hackers, was the biggest and most complex switch since the Cold War.

It took place at a time of war, with global relations between the United States and Russia as bad as they have ever been.

For years, the Kremlin had hinted that when it came to any potential prisoner swaps with the United States and its allies, there was one key name on its list: Vadim Krasikov.

Krasikov, German authorities have alleged, is a former colonel in the FSB.

On Aug. 23, 2019, in Kleiner Tiergarten, a small park in central Berlin, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen and ethnic Chechen, was shot three times in broad daylight by someone who had tailed him on a bicycle.

Rico Krieger, a German national who was sentenced to death in a terrorism case but unexpectedly pardoned this week, is among those being released as part of a major prisoner swap Thursday.

Krieger, who formerly worked for the German Red Cross, was convicted in Belarus in June after a murky trial without independent media coverage or the presentation of any public evidence.

It’s the largest international prisoner exchange since the Cold War. Through this complicated deal, journalists, a former Marine and political activists were freed by Russia in exchange for the release of a convicted Russian assassin imprisoned in Germany and several Russian intelligence operatives and hackers held in the United States and Europe. Here is a complete list of those freed.

<b>Returning to the United States (4)</b>

Evan Gershkovich

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Alsu Kurmasheva

Paul Whelan

<b>Going to Germany (12)</b>

Liliya Chanysheva

Ksenia Fadeyeva

Rico Krieger

Moments after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich touched down in Turkey after months of imprisonment in Russia, the newspaper’s editor in chief, Emma Tucker, hailed Thursday as a “joyous day.”

In an open letter praising Gershkovich, 32, as an “inspiration,” Tucker said the “bogus case” against him was “a blow against press freedom” and “a warning to foreign journalists covering the Kremlin.”

The Washington Post Publisher and CEO William Lewis, Executive Editor Matt Murray and Opinions Editor David Shipley wrote they’re “relieved and grateful” for hostage releases — including Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinion contributor.

America negotiated the release of 16 people, including three Americans and one green-card holder, President Biden said Thursday morning.

He said a “feat of diplomacy” released Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza along with five German citizens and seven Russian political prisoners.

“All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty,” Biden said. “Today, their agony is over.”

President Biden thanked several countries — including Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey — that solidified the deal: “This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon.”

Biden said his administration has brought home 70 Americans from captivity during his term, adding that he has no higher priority.

The Biden administration leaned on Vice President Harris at key moments to help secure the complex multicountry prisoner release, including two high-level meetings in Germany with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, said a senior administration official.

Paul Whelan, a former Marine jailed for more than five years over an espionage conviction that U.S. officials decried as wrongful imprisonment, had been detained longer than many other U.S. citizens involved in Thursday’s exchange after being passed over in previous trades.

Whelan — a citizen of the U.S., Canada, Britain and Ireland — worked in corporate security. At the time of his arrest, he worked for a Michigan-based automotive parts supplier with business contracts in Russia.

This is an excerpt from a full story.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said the impending release of Michigan’s Paul Whelan was “wonderful news.”

“I know the past years have been excruciating for Paul and his family. I’m so glad they will be seeing Paul soon. Thank you to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for your incredible work to bring these Americans home,” Stabenow posted online.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that he was “thrilled” about the prisoner exchange but warned of the risks of such a deal.

“I remain concerned that continuing to trade innocent Americans for actual Russian criminals held in the U.S. and elsewhere sends a dangerous message to Putin that only encourages further hostage taking by his regime,” he said.

The dateline on the columns by the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary was, and still is, jarring: “PRETRIAL DETENTION CENTER NO. 5, MOSCOW.”

In this surreal era — when Russia amasses imprisoned journalists for their trade value — the unusual origin point of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s writings for The Washington Post’s Opinions section synced with the unusual circumstances in which he found himself.

This is an excerpt from a full story.

On March 29, 2023, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story about how Russia’s economy was teetering on the edge of disaster as its invasion of Ukraine entered its second year. An oligarch delivered the oh-wow quote: “There will be no money next year.”

Landing a piece on the front page of the Journal should have meant a celebratory day for one of the article’s co-authors, a gregarious 32-year-old Moscow correspondent named Evan Gershkovich.

This is an excerpt from a full story.

Groups dedicated to the rights of journalists were celebrating early reports of the releases.

Some mentioned Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The Turkish government said in a statement that the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) facilitated the exchange, after the negotiating countries met in Turkey in July. Of the seven aircraft used in the exchange, two were from the United States, the Turkish statement said, and Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Russia each had one.