Here’s a list of the 24 prisoners who were exchanged on Thursday and their backgrounds.
By Ivan NechepurenkoValerie Hopkins and Alina Lobzina in the NYT
- Aug. 1, 2024 Updated 1:35 p.m. ET
Twenty-four prisoners were freed on Thursday in a multicountry exchange in Turkey, marking one of the broadest exchanges between Russia and the West in years.
Here’s what to know about all of the prisoners who were exchanged in the swap.
Released by Russia:
- Three American citizens: Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan
- Six other Western prisoners
- Four political prisoners and human rights advocates
- Three Russians with ties to Aleksei Navalny
Released by the West:
The Released American Citizens
Evan Gershkovich
A reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, 32, was detained by masked security service agents in March 2023 during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg, a major Russian industrial hub about 850 miles east of Moscow. Shortly after, he was charged with espionage, the first such case against a Western reporter since 1986.
In their indictment, Russian prosecutors accused Mr. Gershkovich of using “painstaking conspiratorial methods” to obtain “secret information” about a Russian military industrial facility that produces tanks and other weapons. Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. government have denied the charges and called them politically motivated.
On July 19, a Russian court in Yekaterinburg sentenced Mr. Gershkovich to 16 years in a high-security penal colony in a swift trial that only took three hearings to complete.
Alsu Kurmasheva
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American editor working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a broadcaster funded by the U.S. government, was sentenced to six and a half years in a Russian penal colony for “spreading false information” about the Russian Army. The charge is broadly used by the Kremlin to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine. (continued)