Major prisoner exchange between the US and Russia conducted

(Patria) - Twenty-six people from seven different countries, including the US and Russia, were exchanged today as part of a major prisoner swap in Turkey.

Among them is Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the Turkish presidency announced.

The presidency stated that 26 individuals arrived from prisons in the US, Russia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Belarus.

These include Gershkovich, detained in Russia, and American Marine Paul Whelan.

Ten prisoners, including two minors, were transferred to Russia, 13 to Germany, and three to the US.

The Turkish intelligence community announced a major prisoner exchange it is coordinating. On one side are Russia and Belarus, and on the other are Western countries led by the US and Germany.

Gershkovich was convicted on July 19th with unusual speed on espionage charges, which he denies, and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Moscow has signaled a desire to have Vadim Krasikov returned, a Russian serving a sentence in Germany for the murder of a Chechen-Georgian dissident in Berlin.

A Slovenian court on Wednesday convicted two Russians for espionage and using false identities and announced they would be deported, reported the STA news agency, and Slovenian state television reported this was part of a broader exchange.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed earlier today that a special Russian government plane, used for a previous prisoner exchange involving the US and Russia, flew from Moscow to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad bordering Lithuania and Poland before returning to the Russian capital.

Perviy Otdel (First Department), an association specializing in defending people in Russian cases and espionage, said the flight could signify a prisoner exchange occurred at the Polish border. Reuters could not confirm this.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both imprisoned in Russia, suddenly disappeared, their lawyers said the day before, after at least seven Russian dissidents were unexpectedly moved from their prisons in recent days.

Unconfirmed reports from Russian media today stated that another dissident, opposition activist Vadim Ostanin, was transferred from a Siberian prison to Moscow.

Russian online media outlet "Agenstvo" reported that at least six special Russian government planes had flown in recent days to and from regions where prisons holding dissidents are located.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian detained in the US, refused to confirm his client's whereabouts to the state news agency RIA yesterday "until the exchange is carried out".

But RIA quoted lawyer Arkady Buh as saying that lawyers representing people imprisoned in Russia had told him they were "on their way" to unknown locations.

RIA also reported that four Russians imprisoned in the US had disappeared from the prisoner database maintained by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. It named them as Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenok, and Vladislav Klushin.

The US also holds at least two other Russian citizens – Vladimir Dunayev and Roman Seleznev, convicted of serious cybercrimes, who could also be involved.

The Kremlin declined to say if an exchange was being prepared, as did the Russian embassy in Washington, and there were no comments from Western countries. Such exchanges are usually shrouded in secrecy until they occur.

Dissidents within Russia whose supporters say they were told they were suddenly moved in recent days include opposition politician Ilya Yashin, human rights activist Oleg Orlov, and Daniil Krinari, who was convicted of secretly collaborating with foreign governments.

Among others who suddenly disappeared from the prison system are German-Russian citizen Kevin Lik, convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeyeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skolchilenko.

Ivan Pavlov, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer now living in Prague who founded Perviy Otdel, said the disappearance of so many people of similar profiles suggests authorities are gathering them, likely in Moscow, for an exchange.

He said President Vladimir Putin would have to pardon them before the exchange, a necessary formality.

Media outlet "Important Stories" drew attention to the fact that Putin, according to the government website, signed a series of secret decrees on July 30th that are said to potentially be prisoner pardons.

In December 2022, Russia exchanged basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years for possessing cannabis oil in her luggage, for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in the US.

The largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War occurred in 2010, involving a total of 14 individuals.

In the West, governments and activists view dissidents as unjustly imprisoned political prisoners. All of them, for various reasons, have been labeled by Moscow as dangerous extremists.