Putin Releases Americans Gershkovich and Whelan in Prisoner Swap Deal

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

****** Releases Americans Gershkovich and Whelan in Prisoner Swap Deal

*********

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

reporter

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and former U.S. marine

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

were released from imprisonment in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on Thursday as part of a prisoner swap deal, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The pair were freed after days of intense speculation that Russian President

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was preparing to free high-profile prisoners, though it remained unclear exactly who would be freed—and who the Kremlin would want in return. The full details of the deal to free Gershkovich and Whelan have not been made immediately available.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The release of Gershkovich comes the month after he was

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in a maximum-security penal colony after being convicted on espionage charges.

He was arrested by Russia’s FSB security service in March 2023 during a reporting trip to the eastern city of Yekaterinburg and accused of gathering secret information about a Russian tank factory on behalf of the CIA. The Journal and the Biden administration vehemently denied the allegations, accusing Russia of conducting a sham trial.

Whelan, meanwhile, was detained in Moscow in 2018 and similarly sentenced in 2020 to 16 years’ imprisonment after his conviction on contested espionage charges. He figured in the last U.S. prisoner swap with Russia, in December 2022, in which WNBA star

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was exchanged for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

At the time, U.S. officials said Russia would not consider including Whelan in the deal. President

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

said Moscow was treating his case differently from Griner’s “for totally illegitimate reasons” but nevertheless vowed to “never give up” on bringing Whelan home.

Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist involved in the negotiations for the new swap deal, told The Daily ****** on Wednesday the arrangement is “bittersweet.” On the one hand, he said, the deal freed people “who were rotting away in Russian prisons on insane charges,” while simultaneously rewarding ******’s belief that “as long as he hoards ‘swap capital’ he will always be able to get his killers, hackers, and spies back.”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#****** #Releases #Americans #Gershkovich #Whelan #Prisoner #Swap #Deal

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/