Evan Gershkovich champions Russian political prisoners in first comments after arriving in the U.S.

Wall Road Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich advocated for dissidents languishing in Russian prisons in his first public feedback on U.S. soil after he was freed Thursday in a prisoner change.

“There’s one factor I want to say. It was nice to get on that bus in the present day and see not simply People and Germans however Russian political prisoners,” Gershkovich mentioned in a quick dialog with Andrew Roth, a reporter for The Guardian, as he stepped off the aircraft at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

“I simply spent a month in jail in Yekaterinburg the place mainly everybody I sat with was a political prisoner,” he added.

Seven Russian residents, together with 4 who labored with the late opposition determine Alexei Navalny, had been among the many 24 folks freed within the main multinational prisoner change. They had been jailed in their very own nation and launched into the West.

On the dissidents he met behind bars, Gershkovich mentioned that nobody knew them publicly however that that they had varied political opinions. “They’re not all Navalny supporters,” he added.

“In the present day was a very touching second … however it will be good to see if we may probably do one thing about them as nicely,” he mentioned.

President Joe Biden known as the deal a “feat of diplomacy and friendship.” It was reduce amongst seven nations, involving 24 folks, together with 5 Germans and 7 Russian residents held in Russia, and eight Russians imprisoned within the U.S., Germany, Slovenia, Norway and Poland.

The change came about in Turkey, and a aircraft carrying Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Russian dissident, touched down in Maryland at 11:38 p.m.

Kara-Murza is a twin Russian British nationwide and U.S. everlasting resident who was jailed on treason fees for 25 years in April 2023. Biden famous that Kara-Murza was a pallbearer throughout the funeral of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Kurmasheva is a twin U.S. and Russian nationwide who works as a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She was arrested in Might 2023 whereas visiting her mom in Russia. She was sentenced to six-and-a-half years final month for “spreading false info” concerning the Russian navy.

After greeting them, Biden straight addressed the Russian residents launched as a part of the deal.

“They stood up for democracy and human rights, their very own leaders threw them in jail. The USA helped safe their launch as nicely,” he mentioned.

Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 and held for greater than 5 years, after being disregarded of two earlier prisoner exchanges, known as his return to the U.S. “a great homecoming.”

“Getting off the aircraft, seeing the president, the vp, that was good,” Whelan mentioned. “Trying ahead to seeing my household down right here and recuperating from 5 years, seven months and 5 days of simply absolute nonsense by the Russian authorities.”

He thanked his supporters, saying he acquired hundreds of letters and playing cards, “so many who the FSB stopped giving them to me.”

Whelan, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in jail, known as the Russian authorities’s fees towards him a “nonsense narrative they got here up with and so they simply, they wouldn’t let it go.”

“That is how Putin runs his authorities. That is how Putin runs his nation,” he added.

 “I’m glad I’m dwelling,” he mentioned. “I’m by no means going again there once more.”

In Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 Airport, an murderer, cybercriminals and others jailed for spying received stiff hugs and handshakes and some phrases from President Vladimir Putin. 

“I want to thanks for the loyalty to your oath, your responsibility and your motherland, which has not forgotten you for even a minute,” he instructed them.  

Putin additionally greeted a household of spies who posed as Argentinian residents whereas dwelling in Slovenia, earlier than they had been detained there. Artem and Anna Dultseva had been sentenced in a closed trial at a courtroom within the nation’s capital, Ljubljana, on Wednesday after pleading responsible to spying fees.

The pair had posed as Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Muños, and settled in Slovenia in 2017. Their two kids attended a global college in Ljubljana, native media reported. 

After describing the couple as “unlawful intelligence officers,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned Friday that Putin spoke to the youngsters in Spanish.

“When the youngsters walked down the aircraft — they don’t communicate Russian — and Putin simply greeted them in Spanish. He mentioned, ‘Buenas noches,’” Peskov mentioned.

He added that they solely came upon they had been Russian once they had been on the aircraft taking them to Moscow.

“They requested their dad and mom yesterday who this man was assembly them. They didn’t even know who Putin was,” Peskov mentioned.

For John Lough, an affiliate fellow on the London-based assume tank Chatham Home, a very powerful of the eight prisoners freed, for Putin, was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman who was jailed for all times in Germany for the killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Chechen separatist.

Germany alleged that Krasikov was appearing on the Kremlin’s orders when he rode by way of Berlin’s central Tiergarten Park on a bicycle and gunned down Khangoshvili, 40, in broad daylight. Moscow denied its direct involvement within the killing, which prompted a significant diplomatic dispute between Russia and Germany.

“He clearly needed Krasikov again and he needed to pay a comparatively excessive value for this. There appears to be a private connection between the 2 of them,” Lough mentioned.

Whereas some analysts and observers steered the prisoner change deal may sign that Putin was warming to the concept of negotiations to finish the struggle in Ukraine, Lough mentioned he didn’t assume it was in “any manner associated to a possible truce or peace settlement.”

Putin, he added, “isn’t prepared for negotiations. He believes he’s profitable even when it’s taking longer than he would have preferred. He’s in no hurry.”