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MOSCOW/ANKARA, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Jailed U.S. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were among 26 prisoners from the United States, Russia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Belarus being freed in a major east-west exchange on Thursday, Turkey’s presidency said.
It said 10 prisoners, including two minors, had been moved to Russia, 13 to Germany, and three to the United States.
Turkish intelligence had announced that it was coordinating an extensive prisoner exchange, amid signs of a major swap between Russia and Belarus on one side and Western countries including the United States and Germany on the other.
“Our organization has undertaken a major mediation role in this exchange operation, which is the most comprehensive of the recent period,” the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) said in a statement.
The United States and four allies reached a deal with Russia for their largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, in a swap that includes the release of 16 people including U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, the White House said on Thursday.
The Biden administration negotiated the complex trade with Russia and several other countries, agreeing to send eight prisoners held in the West back to Russia, including Vadim Krasikov, who had been serving a life sentence for killing a Chechen-Georgian dissident in Berlin.
Negotiated in secret for more than a year, the deal represents a major accomplishment for the parties and will be presented by the Biden administration as a marquee foreign policy success as the U.S. presidential race enters its final months.
Flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed that a special Russian government plane used for a previous prisoner swap involving the United States and Russia had flown from Moscow to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania, before heading back to the Russian capital.
Reuters footage showed a Russian government plane on the ground in the Turkish capital Ankara. Whelan and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both jailed in Russia, had suddenly disappeared from view in recent days, according to their lawyers. At least seven Russian dissidents had been unexpectedly moved from their prisons.
A lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian held in the United States, declined on Wednesday to confirm the whereabouts of his client to the state RIA news agency “until the exchange takes place”. RIA had also reported that four Russians jailed in the United States had disappeared from a database of prisoners operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. It named them Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenok, and Vladislav Klyushin.
Dissidents inside Russia whose supporters say they have been told that they have been suddenly moved in recent days include opposition politician Ilya Yashin, human rights activist Oleg Orlov , and Daniil Krinari, convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments.
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