How the Russian prisoner swap that freed Evan Gershkovich unfolded over two years
It was a tale of two families when the negotiations that resulted in the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and three other U.S. residents from Russian captivity Thursday got underway nearly two years ago.
It was a tale of two families when the negotiations that resulted in the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and three other U.S. residents from Russian captivity Thursday got underway nearly two years ago.
WNBA star Brittney Griner, who had been jailed on drug charges, was heading home in December 2022 to her relieved wife and kin after the Biden administration worked out a deal with the Russians to exchange her for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, aka “The Merchant of Death.”
Meanwhile, Paul Whelan’ family was in anguish after it learned that the release of Whelan, a former Marine who had been falsely accused of espionage and had by that point served two years of a 16-year sentence in a grim Russian prison, was not part of that deal.
Evan Gershkovich, Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan.APThey soon learned, sources told NBC News, that the Biden administration was already seeking to exchange other Russian prisoners in U.S. custody for Whelan and other captive Americans.“Through many difficult conversations over the past several years, I told the families of those wrongfully detained in Russia that we would not forget them,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday. “I know there are many times over those years where they have wondered if our work would ever bear fruit. But I also know that they never gave up hope, and neither did we.”
Blinken was the first official to float the idea of another possible prisoner swap after Griner’s release to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Rating: 5