One year ago, Russia and the United States conducted the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, freeing journalist Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan from Russian custody.
The August 1, 2024, deal was the culmination of months of backdoor negotiations between former President Joe Biden’s administration, the Russian government and the governments of five other nations, making it one of the most significant diplomatic operations between Russia and the West in decades.
In total, the historic swap involved the release of 16 people previously detained in Russia in exchange for eight people held in the U.S., Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland. Turkey was a neutral country where the swap took place.
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Who was released from Russian custody in the swap?
More than a dozen people were released from Russian prisons and labor camps, several of them Russian pro-democracy and human rights activists or prominent opposition figures of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The deal also freed five German citizens from Russian custody, three American citizens and one U.S. resident.
The three Americans were Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, the journalist Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.
More: Who were the Russian prisoners released in swap for Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich?
The last high-profile prisoner swap between Russia and the U.S. took place more than two years prior, when American basketball player Brittney Griner was exchanged for a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. He had been held in an American prison for 12 years following convictions of aiding a terrorist organization, conspiring to kill Americans and to supply anti-aircraft missiles. Griner was arrested in February 2022 after customs officials in Russia alleged that they found vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis in her luggage, and was sentenced to nine years in prison for smuggling drugs.
Who is Paul Whelan?
Whelan, who was born in Canada and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, worked as a police officer for over a decade before he joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. He received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines after he was convicted in a special court-martial of attempting to steal more than $10,000 while at Al Asad Airbase in Iraq.
He was arrested while visiting Russia in December 2018 and charged with espionage, which he and his family have firmly denied. He was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in a work camp. At the time of his arrest, Whelan was the head of global security for BorgWarner, a Michigan-based auto supply company.
Who is Evan Gershkovich?
Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen from New Jersey, was detained in Russia in March 2023 while living and working in the country as one of the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow reporters. He is a former national of the Soviet Union and had accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist in the country at the time.
His arrest came a little over a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, during a time of heightened tensions between the West and Russia over the war. At the time, the Kremlin was cracking down on opposition activists, independent journalists, and civil society groups, USA TODAY previously reported. By the time of his release, he had been held in Russia for 17 months.
Who is Alsu Kurmasheva?
Kurmasheva is a Russian-American journalist who was working for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty at the time of her detention.
She was detained while visiting Russia in June 2023 for a family emergency for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. Authorities confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty reported, preventing her from leaving the country, and later detained her again in October 2023, on charges of failing to declare herself a foreign agent. Kurmasheva and her employer have long denied the accusations, calling the detention and charges politically motivated. Leading human rights and media watchdog organizations have called Kurmasheva’s and Gershkovich’s arrests arbitrary and part of Russia’s years-long crackdown on independent and foreign media.
A few months later, Russian authorities launched a third investigation against the journalist for “spreading false information” about Russia’s military, a charge for which she was convicted in July 2024.
Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza?
Kara-Murza, a former journalist and prominent opposition figure, was also part of the 2024 prisoner swap. He is Russian-born but has dual citizenship with the U.K., and is a U.S. green card holder. He is a contributing columnist at the Washington Post.
Kara-Murza had been imprisoned since 2022 on charges of treason and spreading false information about the Russian military, which he has rejected. In 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017. Kara-Murza has claimed both were assassination attempts using the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, and caused him to fall into a coma. The Kremlin has denied any involvement. According to his Washington Post bio, a media investigation by Bellingcat and The Insider identified officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service who were behind the poisonings.
Contributing: Kinsey Crowley, Christopher Cann, Margie Cullen, USA TODAY NETWORK.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russia-US prisoner swap anniversary: What to know a year later
