U.S.-Russia Prisoner Exchange
The U.S.-Russia Prisoner Exchange was the largest since 1985, during the so-called Cold War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally received at Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 airport the eight prisoners released in the largest prisoner swap with the West since 1985.
The U.S.-Russia prisoner swap included Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez, and spies Anna Valereva Dulceva and Artem Viktorovic Dulcev, who lived in Argentina and had two children as part of a strategy designed by the Kremlin’s secret service.
The couple then moved to Slovenia, where they were discovered, tried and convicted just weeks before the mega prisoner swap that involved journalist Evan Gershkovich and Marine Paul Whelan, among others, on the other side.
In the images offered live on Russian television, it could be seen how Putin first embraced Vadim Krasikov, the Federal Security Service (FSB) agent sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for the murder in 2019 of a Georgian citizen, at the foot of the stairs of the plane.
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The U.S.-Russia prisoner swap included four other Russians released were Mikhail Mikushin, convicted of espionage in Norway; hacker Roman Selezniov, serving 27 years in prison in the U.S.; Vladislav Kliushin, sentenced in the U.S. to nine years for computer crimes; and Vadim Konoschenok, arrested in Estonia and extradited to the U.S. for purchasing electronic equipment for the Russian military industry.
U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange
Turkey coordinated in its capital Ankara the exchange of 26 prisoners from seven countries between Russia and Western countries, an exchange that includes American journalist Evan Gershkovich, the Turkish presidency announced in a statement Thursday (01.08.2024).
In total, ten prisoners, including two minors, were transferred to Russia, thirteen to Germany and three to the United States.
The U.S.-Russia prisoner swap allowed the release of citizens coming from the U.S., Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus.
The U.S.-Russia Prisoner Exchange allowed the release of former U.S. soldier Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia; U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, who a few weeks ago was sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison for “espionage; and Vadim Krassikov, an alleged Russian agent imprisoned in Germany for the murder of a former Chechen separatist commander in Berlin in 2019.
They were transported to Turkey in seven planes from the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Russia, the source said.
One plane took off from each of these countries, except from the United States, from where two planes departed, “in the framework of the prisoner exchange operation,” the presidency said.
