A prisoner swap between the US and Russia is currently underway and is expected to include Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and several other Americans. The agreement will see the prisoners transferred into the care of US officials, putting an end to Whelan’s five-year nightmare and Gershkovich’s ordeal that lasted over a year. Both men were wrongfully detained according to the US State Department.
Negotiations between Moscow and Washington have been ongoing for months, with US diplomats searching for offers to persuade Russia to release the American prisoners. Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage, a trial that has been criticized as a sham by the US government, his newspaper, and supporters. Whelan, a citizen of multiple countries, was detained in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges he denies and is currently serving his sentence at a labor camp.
Whelan had been excluded from previous exchange deals in 2022, but he is now part of the latest swap which is expected to bring him and other Americans back home. The prisoner exchange is considered a significant development in US-Russia relations and provides hope for the safe return of those wrongfully detained individuals.
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