President Joe Biden on Thursday hailed the complex prisoner-swap deal with Russia that freed unjustly imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and two others in exchange for prisoners including Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov as a prodigious “feat of diplomacy.”
Biden said all four of the recovered prisoners were “convicted in show trials” by Russia “for absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever.”
In addition to Gershkovich and Whelan, the freed detainees included Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Muza, a U.S. green-card holder and Washington Post contributor who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April for speaking out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan after their release from Russia in a prisoner swap on Aug. 1, 2024 (Photo Property of the U.S. Government)
Kurmasheva was arrested in 2023 while visiting her sick mother in the Tatarstan region. She was convicted in a hasty secret trial in July and sentenced to 16 years in prison on false charges of espionage.
Biden said he and the families of the released detainees were able to speak with them by telephone shortly before his statement from the White House:
“They’re out of Russia,” he said. “Earlier today, they were flown to Turkey, and soon they’ll be wheels-up on their way home to see their families. It’s an incredible relief for all of the family members gathered here. It’s a relief to their friends and colleagues all across the country. We’ve been praying for this day for a long time.”
“The deal that made this possible was a feat of diplomacy and friendship,” he said. “Multiple countries helped get this done. They joined in difficult, complex negotiations at my request. I personally thank them all again.”
According to an ABC News report on Thursday, an especially tricky part of those “complex negotiations” was convincing Germany to release Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili.
German courts found that Krasikov carried out the killing on the orders of the Russian government, which supplied him with a false identity, false papers, and other resources.
The case caused a major diplomatic rift between Russia and Germany, which said Russia conducting a political execution on German soil was a “serious violation of German law and Germany’s sovereignty.”
The regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin has for years insisted that Krasikov must be part of any prisoner swap deal, including a rumored swap that might have freed dissident Alexei Navalny before he was killed under mysterious circumstances in a Russian penal colony in February 2024.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S President Joe Biden shake hands during their meeting at the “Villa la Grange” in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 16, 2021 (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File).
White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Thursday morning that securing Krasikov’s release “required extensive diplomatic engagement with our German counterparts, starting at the top with the president himself, who worked this issue directly with Chancellor Schultz.”
“We are deeply grateful to Germany for their partnership,” Sullivan said, a sentiment later echoed by Biden in his statement.
Biden also thanked Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey for making “bold and brave decisions to release prisoners being held in their countries who were justifiably being held, and provided logistical support to get the Americans home.”
“All told, Russia has released 16 prisoners. Eight Russians who were being held in the West will be sent home as well,” Biden said on Wednesday afternoon. “These 16 prisoners that Russia is releasing include 4 Americans, 5 Germans, and 7 Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country.”
Biden said one of the freed Russian citizens was a human rights activist thrown in prison by Putin for “voicing opposition to the war in Ukraine,” while four others “worked with Alexei Navalny.
“It says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans who are unjustly held around the world, but it also says a lot about us that this deal includes the release of Russian political prisoners,” Biden said, adding, “They stood up for democracy and human rights. Their own leaders threw them in prison. The United States helped secure their release as well”
“That’s who we are in the United States. We stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice – not only for our own people, but for others as well,” he said.
Biden injected a sour partisan note into his statement by claiming he has been working since before his inauguration on Russian prisoners he “inherited from the prior administration,” meaning that of former President Donald Trump.
“I wanted to make sure we hit the ground running, and we did,” he boasted. “As of today, my administration has brought home over 70 Americans who were wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad – many since before I took office.”
CBS News reported that Russia will receive three prisoners held in the United States, two from Slovenia, one from Poland, and one from Norway. Unlike Putin’s hostages, all of these prisoners were convicted in proper trials of real offenses, and “all have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence.”
The three Russians released from U.S. prisons are Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin, and Roman Seleznyov.
Konoschenok was tried in U.S. court after being extradited from Estonia in July 2023 for running a money laundering network that helped the Russian government evade international sanctions and for helping Russia obtain sensitive American-made electronics and ammunition to assist the Russian war effort in Ukraine.
“This defendant, who is suspected of having ties to the FSB, smuggled hundreds of thousands of illicit munitions in support of Moscow’s war machine, using front companies to conceal his criminal enterprise,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said when Konoschenk was arraigned.
Vladislav Klyushin was sentenced to nine years in prison by a federal court in Boston in September 2023 for a $93 million stock market cybercrime. Klyushin and his co-conspirators stole confidential information from hundreds of American companies, including big names such as Tesla and Roku, to make illegal securities trades.
Prosecutors said Klyushin serving his full sentence would send a vitally important “message to criminals around the world that their location does not provide anonymity and the reach of American law enforcement is long.”
“The FBI will not stand idly by and allow criminals like him to launch intrusive cyber-attacks to meddle in our financial markets,” FBI special agent in charge Jodi Cohen said.
Roman Seleznev was also a cyber-criminal, sentenced to 14 years in November 2017 for running a massive crime ring that stole the identities of American citizens and used them for $50 million in credit card fraud, bank fraud, and other crimes.
Seleznev sold so many stolen identities that he had to set up an automated website to handle high demand from thieves and scam artists. His clients enjoyed a sophisticated shopping interface where they could search for exactly what kind of stolen credit card data they wanted, make their purchase with a secure online shopping cart, and download the stolen goods as soon as their payments cleared.
Seleznev also admitted to helping other cybercriminals launder millions of dollars in stolen loot. Taking down his cybercrime ring required joint efforts by the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Richard Grenell, who was acting director of National Intelligence for Trump in 2020, returned Biden’s political shots on Thursday by worrying that a lopsided prisoner swap that freed Krasikov and other dangerous Russian operatives in exchange for innocent hostages might not be anything to celebrate.
“Putin has just learned that the West will send his terrorists back home to Russia after they kill their enemies – if he has someone to exchange,” Grenell said.
“Putin is very happy with Biden-Harris. Putin just got a huge gift from Germany. And yet Putin continues raging a war in Europe. We are less safe,” he warned.
