WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich and Ex-Marine Paul Whelan released by Russia as part of major prisoner swap with U.S.

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55. Evan Gershkovich, others to be freed in U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, Turkish government says

This was a very complex deal involving multiple countries. It took a world leader like President Biden to pull off this deal

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/01/russia-us-prisoner-swap/

In the largest prisoner exchange since the height of the Cold War, officials of the United States, Russia, Germany and other countries met on an airfield tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday and were swapping at least two dozen people, the Turkish presidency said — capping months of painstaking diplomacy involving negotiations at the highest levels of multiple governments.

Those to be released included American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal, who was accused of espionage without any known evidence, and Paul Whelan, a former Marine jailed for more than five years after an espionage conviction the United States called baseless, as well as several Russian dissidents who demanded freedom and democracy or criticized the war in Ukraine, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post Opinions contributor.

The prisoners were released from the jails of seven countries: the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus, the Turkish presidential office said, adding that they were brought to Turkey by seven planes, two from the United States and one each from Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Russia.