SAN ANTONIO – Three citizens freed in a prison swap between the United States and Russia landed in San Antonio early Friday morning, capping a whirlwind day after the Biden Administration secured their historic release.
Shortly after their releases were made official, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan hopped on a plane headed for the United States.
Their plane touched down Thursday night at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland to what was an emotional welcome from their families, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Associated Press reports they took selfies with family members and friends, shared hugs with Biden and Harris, patted loved ones on the back and smothered them with kisses, and at one point, Biden gave Paul Whelan the flag pin off his own lapel.
The ex-prisoners and their families then boarded another plane, which eventually touched down in San Antonio around 3:10 a.m.
>> Things to know about the largest US-Russia prisoner swap in post-Soviet history
Gershkovich, Kurmasheva and Whelan are next headed to Brooke Army Medical Center for further medical evaluation. Typically, the U.S. government brings formerly detained prisoners to BAMC to begin reacclimating to normal life.
After they left Russia, Gershkovich, Kurmasheva and Whelan were joined on the plane by multiple medical personnel, a psychologist and U.S. government officials, CNN reported Thursday.
The White House released a photo of all three of them together.
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. pic.twitter.com/1rYNBTt9tJ
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 1, 2024
Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government vehemently denied. The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”
“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.
Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.
Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial and conviction for Gershkovich, which Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.
In a trial that concluded in two days in secrecy in the same week as Gershkovich’s, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military that her family, employer and U.S. officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.
Gershkovich was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S. The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan was convicted of espionage charges, which he and the U.S. have said were trumped-up, and he was serving a 16-year prison sentence.
Whelan had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy. That December, the U.S. released notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who’d been jailed on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States government for making Paul’s freedom a reality,” his family said in a statement.
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