 "Who are Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, US citizens freed by Russia in prisoner swap?")
Russia has freed Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in a prisoner exchange swap.
Gershkovich is a Wall Street Journal reporter, while Whelan is a former US marine.
Both men have been convicted of spying – and deny the charges.
The development comes in the backdrop of a number of Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow’s war in Ukraine disappearing from Russian prisons in recent days – in what activists said was a sign of impending prisoner swaps.
But what do we know about Gershkovich and Whelan? How did they land up in prison in Russia?
Let’s take a closer look:
Evan Gershkovich
Gershkovich, 32, is the son of emigres who left the Soviet Union for the United States during the Cold War.
The 32-year-old fluent Russian-speaker was hired by the Wall Street Journal shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He had been reporting on Russia for more than five years at the time of his arrest last year.
Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023 while dining in a steakhouse in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,400 km east of Moscow.
He was on a reporting trip.
He was transferred to the capital, where he was held until last month in Lefortovo, a prison used by the FSB security service and its predecessor, the Soviet KGB, for suspects accused of spying or other grave crimes.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsProsecutors allege that he was gathering information on the orders of the US Central Intelligence Agency about a Russian company that makes tanks for the war in Ukraine.
In court, Gershkovich denied the charges. Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 18 years.
The Wall Street Journal says Gershkovich was just doing his job as a reporter accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to report on the country.
It called the trial proceedings a sham.
The Kremlin claimed Gershkovich was “caught red-handed”, but Russia published no evidence to support that.
The trial began on June 26 in Yekaterinburg, the city where Gershkovich was arrested.
Journalists were allowed to film him before the start but not to attend the hearings, which were held behind closed doors on the grounds that the case involves state secrets.
Gershkovich’s lawyers were prevented by non-disclosure agreements from talking to journalists about the trial.
Gershkovich earlier in July was convicted on espionage charges and given a 16-year jail term.
As per Axios, Gershkovich was the first US journalist to stand trial in Russia since the Cold War.
The Wall Street Journal labelled the sentence “a disgraceful sham conviction.”
Biden had said after the sentencing that he was “pushing hard for Evan’s release and will continue to do so.”
Gershkovich was then sent to Lefortovo Prison — a symbol of repression since Soviet times.
Paul Whelan
Whelan, 54, is a former Marine.
As per BBC, Whelan is currently a citizen of the United States, Canada, the UK and the Irish Republic.
Whelan was born in Canada to British parents who later moved to the US. He grew up in Michigan’s Novi.
Whelan joined the US Marine Reserves in 1994.
Prior to that, he worked as a police officer in Michigan in 1988.
He began his professional career as an IT project manager for Kelly Services in the early 2000s.
However, after the US invaded Iraq, Whelan deployed there with the marines. He served two tours of duty – in 2004 and 2006. It was during serving in the marines that Whelan first visited Russia.
Whelan on his now defunct website said he had a “quite enjoyable time” in Moscow and St Petersburg.
In 2008, Whelan was dishonourably discharged from the marines.
By 2010, Whelan was senior manager of global security for Kelly Services.
In 2016, he left the firm to become director of global security for BorgWarner – a US-based automobile parts supplier BorgWarner.
Whelan was “responsible for overseeing security” at its facilities in Michigan and around the world, the company said.
It added that it does not have any facilities in Russia, as per BBC.
Then came the twist in the tale.
As per SpyScape.com, Whelan in 2018 visited Russia to attend a friend’s wedding.
He was staying at a hotel in Moscow’s Metropol when the Federal Security Service agents burst into his room and slammed him to the floor.
Whelan was detained by Russia’s notorious FSB security service after he took a flash drive from an acquaintance, thinking it contained holiday photographs.
Moscow claimed he had illegally taken possession of state secrets that could harm national security.
Whelan charged with espionage.
He spent the next 18 months behind bars – including a spell at the Lefortovo Prison.
The trial was held almost completely behind closed doors.
“This is simply a dog and pony show for the media. They’re not doing anything at all,” Whelan protested.
“Russia says it caught James Bond on a spy mission,” he said.
“In reality, they abducted Mr Bean on holiday."
In June 2020, Whelan was convicted of espionage.
He was sentenced to 16 years in a remote Russian penal colony for espionage.
Whelan complained in detention that he was refused sufficient treatment for persistent health problems and that he had been injured by prison guards.
And when he was moved to an isolated penal colony in the region of Mordovia after being convicted, concerns grew over his conditions. He was tasked with sewing clothes in a prison factory in icy temperatures.
He claimed to have been assaulted by another inmate for being an American citizen and punished by prison staff for refusing an interview with state-run media RT, known as Russia Today.
Whelan in recent times was losing hope of ever being freed, having seen other high-profile Americans including basketball star Brittney Griner sent home through negotiations.
“The Russians have ruined my life. One that is destined to end in a slave labor camp, fraught with intolerable conditions,” Whelan told his parents in December 2023, after the Kremlin announced it rejected an offer to swap him.
Through it all, Whelan continued to insist that the evidence against him was falsified.
Big win for Biden
Signs of an imminent prisoner swap had picked up momentum on Thursday, amid reports a plane used in a previous exchange deal had landed in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Hopes had also risen in recent days after a number of high-profile prisoners in Russia, including Whelan, went missing from prisons where they were serving long terms.
Among those expected to be returned to Russia in exchange is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian citizen imprisoned in Germany for killing a former Chechen rebel commander in a brazen assassination.
The exchange would be a victory for President Joe Biden, whose vice president, Kamala Harris, faces Republican Donald Trump in the November election.
This would be the first prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since star US basketball player Brittney Griner was swapped in return for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in December 2022.
It would also be the biggest exchange since 2010, when 14 alleged spies were exchanged between Russia and the West. They included double agent Sergei Skripal, who was sent by Moscow to Britain and undercover Russian agent Anna Chapman, sent by Washington to Russia.
Before then, major swaps involving more than a dozen people had only taken place during the Cold War, with Soviet and Western powers carrying out exchanges in 1985 and 1986.
An aircraft already used in Griner and Bout’s exchange flew from Moscow to Kaliningrad on Thursday morning, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.
The flight was later tracked taking off from Kaliningrad two hours later.
As a rule, swaps can only happen after a conviction in Russia, and the disappearance of several high-profile political prisoners at once is extremely rare.
Arrests of US citizens in Russia have increased in recent years, in what Washington sees as a Kremlin attempt to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad.
Axios quoted Reporters Without Borders as saying it was ‘relieved’ at the development.
“We are anxiously waiting for news of his safe return to the United States, but emphasise that he never should have spent a single day in a Russian prison for doing his job as a journalist,” the group said in a statement.
With inputs from agencies
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