Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and others freed in prisoner exchange
Deccan ChronicleWashington: The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place. The trade followed years of secretive back-channel negotiations despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The deal would be the latest exchange in the last two years between Washington and Moscow, including a December 2022 trade that brought WNBA star Brittney Griner back to the US in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout and a swap earlier that year of Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy. Washington: e United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place.