Tucker Carlson and tense talks: How the landmark Us-russia prisoner swap unfolded
THE first photo released after Russian authorities freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Irish citizen Paul Whelan, and Russian-american journalist Alsu Kurmasheva shows the three aboard a US government jet, doing something they likely hadn’t done much of in a while: smiling.
Whelan, who served in the US Marine Corps from 2003 to 2008 and worked in corporate security before taking an office job, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges and sentenced to 16 years behind bars.
Kurmasheva, who was working for Radio Free Europe/radio Liberty in Prague, was arrested last autumn by Russian security services and convicted less than two weeks ago for “spreading false information” about the Russian military.
She was sentenced to six-and-a half-years behind bars.
Gershkovich had been reporting critically, from Russia, on the country’s invasion of Ukraine, when he was arrested by the FSB on March 29, 2023.
They were finally freed thanks to intense negotiations over the past two years.
It was a herculean effort negotiated by the White House, with crucial assists by the detainees’ colleagues, loved ones, tech moguls, a former secretary of state, at least one TV personality, the governments of Germany, Slovenia, Poland, Belarus, Norway, Turkey, and one particularly relentless figure: the 32-year-old Gershkovich’s mum.
On Thursday, after 490 days, Gershkovich walked out of a maximum-security Russian prison as part of the biggest and most consequential such exchange since the end of the Cold War. In all, 24 people from both sides were released, including British-russian dissident Vladimir Kara-murza and anti-war artist Aleksandra Skochilenko.
For their part, US authorities gave up, among others, imprisoned hacker Vladislav Klyushin, alleged money launderer Vadim Konoshchenok, credit card fraudster Roman Seleznev, a pair of accused Russian intelligence agents jailed in Slovenia, and reportedly most important of all to Putin, hitman Vadim Krasikov, an FSB colonel incarcerated in Germany for the 2019 murder of Chechen military commander Zelimkhan Sultanovich Khangoshvili in a Berlin park.
The swap took place on an airport tarmac in Ankara, which untold numbers watched live on TV.
However, all along, there was ongoing activity being secretly carried out behind closed doors, which the Journal documented contemporaneously but was unable to reveal until now. Gershkovich had been languishing in solitary confinement at Lefortovo prison, where he was prevented from meeting with officials from the US Embassy, according to the Journal.
Jailing Gershkovich was Putin’s best hope of forcing the Americans to hand back Krasikov.
Putin had, in 2022, already unsuccessfully offered to trade Whelan for Krasikov, hoping the US could convince the Germans to let him go.
So, last year, Putin and his top national security apparatchiks decided to up the ante and use Gershkovich as Russia’s next bid for Krasikov, the Journal reported. Meanwhile, Millman had been contacted by special presidential envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens, a former Green Beret appointed by Trump and kept on the payroll by Biden.
And as Carstens worked his sources, Millman found a way to get in front of Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser and the one she believed actually had the juice to make something happen, according to the Journal.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was also in the mix, playing intermediary between Biden and the German government, who Schmidt said could potentially free Krasikov for an exchange that included since-deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Journal article explains. Still, it goes on, the notion of releasing a convicted killer for anyone met with staunch opposition among German officialdom and government lawyers.
In the spring of 2023, however, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz relayed a message to the Journal, through his chief of staff, that releasing Krasikov “may not be easy for us, but it’s possible”.
Following multiple backchannel meetings and interactions, and TV host Tucker Carlson’s plea for Gershkovich’s release while interviewing Putin for a recent special, Scholz in February told Biden, according to the Journal, “For you, I will do this.”
Navalny remained central to the deal, and Putin, via Russian oligarch and ex-chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, signalled his willingness to Carstens that he would play ball, the Journal article said, noting FBI director Chris Wray and Vice-president Kamala Harris were involved.
Then, in February, Navalny mysteriously died at the labour camp where he was imprisoned.
The Biden administration was spooked, but in May, the president promised Millman he’d formalise the Krasikov release deal with Scholz, who needed an official request from the US to give himself political cover, the Journal article said.
On July 21, Biden called the prime minister of Slovenia, which still needed to finish making final legal arrangements for the release of the two Russian spies in its custody. An hour later, according to the Journal, Biden announced he was dropping his re-election bid.
As of today, Evan Gershkovich is free.
But before the Kremlin would put him on a government plane to Ankara for the prisoner swap, they made him write a personal clemency request to Putin.
At the bottom, according to the Journal, its intrepid reporter, who soon would be back on the job, asked Putin to grant him an interview.