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The United States and its allies agreed Thursday to a massive swap of political prisoners with Russia, including returning Wall Street Journal reporter and former Marine Paul Whelan to the U.S.
The two wrongfully detained American citizens had both been held in Moscow. It is unclear who Russia will receive in return for the two Americans.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American radio journalist, who was detained in Russia in June 2023 on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army, will also be released by Russia, according to media reports.
Others are expected to be part of the deal, but have not yet been named.
The Kremlin so far has not commented on the prisoner deal, and the official Tass news agency carried only a dispatch Thursday morning citing U.S. news reports on an exchange. The Russian Embassy in Washington also declined to comment.
The intelligence service for the government of Turkey issued a statement saying it was coordinating the multinational exchanges, which took place at Ankara’s airport on Thursday afternoon local time. Turkish officials said a total of 26 individuals from seven different countries were involved in the exchange.
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Mr. Gershkovich was arrested by Russian authorities in March 2023 on an espionage charge, which he and U.S. officials have long denied. He was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
He was convicted in a closed court of “gathering secret information,” an outcome that Russian critics had alleged was predetermined. U.S. officials said the veteran reporter would likely only be freed through a prisoner swap.
At the time of his conviction, The Journal slammed it as “a sham.”
Mr. Whelan was arrested in December 2018 while traveling in Russia and also accused of espionage. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have denied the charges. He was sentenced to 16 years in a remote prison camp in Morodovia in 2020.
Mr. Whelan had been left out of several previous prisoner swaps by both the Trump and Biden administrations, angering his family. He spent more than 2,000 days in Russian custody.
The last major prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia occurred in December 2022 when Moscow released WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Ms. Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison for smuggling and possessing cannabis, which is illegal in Russia.
Russian news outlets were reporting that as many as two dozen prisoners on both sides could be part of the deal, including Russians held in Germany and Slovenia on espionage and other charges.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that a group of Russian lawyers and rights defenders known as Pervy Otdel (First Department) had posted a report on the Telegram messaging service Wednesday detailing the flight path of an Antonov plane that had been previously used by the Kremlin in other prisoner exchanges.
“An An-148 plane, which was allegedly used for the previous exchange of political prisoners, took off from Kaliningrad to Moscow [on Aug. 1],” the message read in part. Kaliningrad is a small enclave of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic Sea coastline.
The Slovenian broadcaster N1 reported Thursday that a pair of Russian spies in their custody, Artem Viktorovic Dulcev and Ana Valerevna Dulceva, will be sent back to Moscow as part of the large-scale prisoner swap.
“They were sentenced to a total sentence of one year and seven months in prison, which is about as much as they have already spent in custody,” N1 reported. “The detention against them has now been lifted, the judgment is final, and Slovenia will deport them.”
They were arrested in December 2022 while posing as Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Munos, both citizens of Argentina, N1 reported.
A senior Slovenian government official confirmed that the fate of the two Russian spies in their custody was part of the high-stakes negotiations to release Mr. Gershkovich and others being held by Moscow.
“All options are open. They are always working,” Vojko Volk, state secretary for International Affairs and National Security in the prime minister’s office told N1.
• David Sands contributed to this story
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