Landmark US-Russia Prisoner Exchange Marks Historical Milestone Amid Diplomatic Concerns

According to human rights activists, at least 1,289 political prisoners are currently held hostage by Vladimir Putin's regime. However, on August 1, Russia and the West conducted the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. As a result, there are now 15 fewer wrongfully convicted people in Russian penal colonies.

Among those released by Putin are three American citizens: former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, 54; Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, 47; and my friend, The Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, 32.

The AFPC-USA has tirelessly advocated for their immediate release. Alsu spent 288 days in Russian custody. Her arrest was allegedly related to the book No to War. 40 Stories of Russians Opposing the Invasion of Ukraine, which was published in 2022 with Kurmasheva's involvement. On July 19, the journalist was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading “fake news” about the Russian military.

On the same day, Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony on dubious espionage charges on behalf of the CIA. It was a tragic day for the journalistic community, yet it brought a glimmer of optimism. The rushed judicial investigation, which lasted less than a month, sparked hope that the long-rumored prisoner swap might finally be nearing its end. And it was true.

Whelan, also sentenced to 16 years for espionage in 2020, spent 2,043 days in total in Russian custody, while Gershkovich was held hostage for 491 days before they were both finally returned home to their families. The video released by the media, showing Evan tightly hugging his mother, Ella Milman, for the first time after shaking hands with U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris by the plane’s ramp, is impossible to watch without tears.

Another returnee to the United States was a green-card holder. His name is Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, a prominent opposition politician and journalist who in 2024 won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for Washington Post columns written from prison. In April 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years on charges of treason, spreading false information about the military, and collaborating with the Free Russia Foundation, which is labeled an “undesirable organization.”

Before arriving in the U.S., Kara-Murza, along with other released political prisoners, held a press conference in Bonn, Germany. He revealed that he had been forced to sign a pardon petition addressed to Putin, which he had categorically refused to do, calling the Russian president “a dictator and a murderer” whom he “won’t ask for mercy.”

He was still forced to leave the country with his internal passport, which is not typically used by Russians for international travel. Displaying a document without Latin script, he unintentionally mirrored a photograph of Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who was exchanged by the USSR for Chilean political prisoner Luis Corvalan in 1976.

“In our country, they can neither imprison nor release you according to the law. It’s a fun state, you won’t get bored,” Kara-Murza quoted Bukovsky as saying.

The names of the remaining 11 released prisoners are not widely known to American audiences, but they are familiar to me, a Russian journalist who knew them long before Putin’s administration initiated their criminal cases.

Early in my career, I took a news comment from Ilya Yashin, 41, another opposition politician who is labeled a “foreign agent” by Russia. He received so far the longest sentence for spreading false information about the Russian military—8.5 years. Like Kara-Murza, he refused to sign a pardon petition. “I understood my stay in prison not only as an anti-war fight but also as a fight for my right to live and engage in independent politics in my country,” he said at a press conference in Bonn.

I also met and interviewed Oleg Orlov, 71, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial. He was put on trial for an anti-war article he wrote for a French media outlet, a translation of which he posted on his Facebook page. He was tried twice for this text; initially, prosecutors deemed the fine imposed too lenient. After an appeal, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.

I did not personally know Alexandra Skochilenko, 33, a Russian artist, but I had read extensively about her trial. Of all the prisoners, her case appears to me the most absurd. She was sentenced to seven years in prison under the same charge as Yashin and Orlov for replacing five price tags in a grocery store with stickers bearing anti-war slogans shortly after the war in Ukraine began.

I can’t help but feel relief that all 15 of them are now with their families rather than living under the constant threat of torture or even death in Russian prisons. This is not an exaggeration or a figure of speech. The world remembers what happened to Alexey Navalny, the most prominent politician and Putin’s opponent, who died in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence in one of the harshest colonies in the Far North. The White House confirmed that his name was on the list for exchange.

While Russia released innocent, wrongfully convicted prisoners, the West freed eight people with dangerous criminal histories.

Evan Gershkovich embraces his mother after deplaning. (ABC7/YouTube)

The Kremlin’s most desired figure in this swap was Vadim Krasikov, a hitman who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of a Chechen dissident in 2019. According to Russian independent intelligence researchers, it was crucial for Putin to personally secure his release to send a message to all Russians opposing his policy: “We have the people and resources ready to find you.”

Equally disturbing is the case of Artem and Anna Dultsev, who were convicted in Slovenia on charges of espionage and forging passports. Their two minor children only learned about their true background on the plane to Russia. “They didn’t even speak Russian and only discovered who President Vladimir Putin was upon arriving in Moscow. This is how illegal intelligence agents work and make such sacrifices for the devotion to their cause,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated proudly.

Among those released by the West were also three other suspected Russian agents: Vadim Konoshchenok, Mikhail Mikushin, and Pavel Rubtsov, as well as two individuals accused of serious cyber crimes, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznev.

The unequal terms of this exchange have prompted public debate: Can the swap really be considered a victory for Western diplomacy? 

One might say it is certainly a victory for humanism. “Should hostages be released? Yes, definitely. The next question is what comes after. We must strive to counter the terrorists. But when the terrorist is a major state with nuclear weapons, this becomes very difficult,” Russian political scientist Ivan Preobrazhensky noted.

At the same time, this historic prisoner exchange sets a dangerous precedent. Russians like Krasikov and Seleznev around the world may now feel safer knowing that the Kremlin will work hard to secure their release from abroad. It is only a matter of time until Putin’s administration arrests a sufficient number of foreign nationals to impose a potential ultimatum on the West.

This raises another somber thought: If American citizens had not been involved in the exchange, the United States might not have fought so vigorously for the release of Russian-born political prisoners.

I wish the negotiators had included a few other names on the swap list. 

Currently, another close friend of mine, attorney Alexey Liptser, is held in pre-trial detention on trumped-up charges for representing Navalny in court. Journalist Maria Ponomareva is serving a six-year sentence for her anti-war stance. Another reporter, Ivan Safronov, was convicted to 22 years on dubious treason charges for his exclusive coverage of the Russian defense complex.

Nearly 1,300 more wrongfully accused Russians, whose names are less known, should be free with their families. I believe governments like the U.S., which value freedom and democracy, must advocate with all possible capacity for their release.