The US has confirmed that 24 individuals were involved in a prisoner exchange between Russia and some Western countries, including the US and Germany. Among the released prisoners are US citizens Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, and former US Marine Paul Whelan. As part of the deal, Russian security service hitman Vadim Krasikov has been freed by Germany.
There had been days of speculation about a major swap between Russia and Western countries, which was heightened after several prisoners were moved from their prison cells in Russian jails to unknown locations.
Evan Gershkovich, a US journalist, was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony earlier this month after being convicted on espionage charges. He was first arrested last March while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg, accused of working for the CIA.
Paul Whelan, a 54-year-old ex-US Marine, was given a 16-year jail sentence in 2020 after being arrested in Moscow on suspicion of spying in 2018. He is a citizen of four countries – the US, Canada, the UK, and Ireland.
On the same day Mr. Gershkovich was convicted, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in a medium-security prison after a secret trial. She was an editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was convicted of spreading false information about the Russian military.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian dissident, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an undesirable organization. He denied all charges and developed a neurological condition in prison as a result of being poisoned.
Ilya Yashin, one of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures, was jailed for spreading fake news about the country’s military. He was arrested after condemning suspected Russian war crimes in Bucha.
Oleg Orlov, a Russian human rights activist, was jailed for calling Russia a fascist state and criticizing the war in Ukraine. He received a two-and-a-half-year term for repeatedly discrediting the Russian armed forces.
Lilia Chanysheva, a local coordinator with Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption network, was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison after being accused of extremism by authorities.
Ksenia Fadeyeva, a local organizer with Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, was sentenced to nine years in prison for organizing an extremist group.
Sasha Skochilenko, an artist, was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for replacing supermarket pricing labels with anti-war messages as a form of protest.
Kevin Lik, a German-Russian citizen, was convicted of treason as a teenager and sentenced to four years in prison for allegedly emailing pictures to representatives of a foreign state prior to and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Rico Krieger, a German national, was accused of planting explosives in Belarus and sentenced to death before being pardoned by the country’s leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Andrei Pivovarov, a Russian opposition activist, was arrested in 2021 after trying to leave the country from St Petersburg and accused of directing an undesirable organization.
Dieter Voronin, a Russian-German citizen, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on treason charges after Moscow alleged he received classified military information from another journalist, Ivan Safronov.
Several other German citizens were released by Russia, including Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, and Vadim Ostanin.
Vadim Krasikov, a Federal Security Service (FSB) agent serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder of an exiled Chechen commander in a Berlin park, was one of the most high-profile prisoners released back to Russia.
Roman Seleznev was found guilty of running a hacking scheme in 2017 that caused $169m in damages and sentenced to 27 years in prison.