After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all of whom are expected to arrive on American soil by nightfall. The three will return to the United States as part of a 24-person prisoner swap — one of the largest since the end of the Cold War — among the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other Western countries.
The deal is a significant and hard-fought win for the Biden administration, which has secured the release of more than 60 hostages or wrongful detainees from around the world over the past three years. Few cases have received a similar level of prominence or scrutiny as the ones in Russia, a longstanding geopolitical rival of the U.S. with a history of taking — and trading — foreign detainees. “All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over,” President Biden said in a statement.
Under the terms of the agreement, 12 political dissidents held in Russia have been released to Germany. Kremlin critic and Washington Post contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza is expected to be flown to Germany, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. Kara-Murza is a British-Russian citizen and a green card holder. His family lives in the U.S.
In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were being held in U.S. prisons: Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznyov. Two Russians held in Slovenia, one in Poland and another in Norway are also headed home. All have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence, according to U.S. officials.
Key among the prisoners returned to Russia, according to American officials familiar with the talks, was Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison by a German court in 2021 for killing a Georgian asylee who had fought against Russians in Chechnya. German judges said the killing had been ordered by Russian federal authorities and called it “state terrorism.”
Details of the deal, which was coordinated over more than half a year by multiple U.S. government agencies including the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, were closely held, though speculation about the swap had mounted in recent days after prominent Russian political prisoners, including Kara-Murza, were moved from their respective jails in Russia. The painstakingly choreographed exchange, apparently one of the most complex in history, finally took place on Thursday on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-russia-prisoner-swap-frees-americans-evan-gershkovich-paul-whelan
Comment: A triumph for diplomacy. Everybody loses something, but everyone also gains something. We have our hostages back along with a handful of Russian dissidents. Putin brought about the return of some of his loyal soldiers. And this took a lot of diplomacy by Biden and his team. He spoke individually with the leaders of Turkey, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Germany to accomplish this historic prisoner swap. Sholtz said he agreed to release Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer, only because of his relationship with Biden. Alliances matter.
TTG
Lose-Lose is not the best form of diplomacy.
Perhaps Kyrylo Budanov’s GUR can do Chancellor Scholz a favor by taking out Krasikov. Using anti-Putin partisans inside the Russian Federation?
But the biggest prize that Putin got back is not Krasikov, it’s the hacker Seleznev and financial securities fraudster Klyushin.
Swapping of spies is a good sign. It shows both sides can actually agree to something and honor it. Hopefully more agreements can be honored and end this war and start focusing on capturing the next batch of spies.
Babelthuap – yes, I thought it might be a good sign too. But the two sides are talking to each other anyway behind the scenes so perhaps not.
Odd PR at the moment.
For us deplorables, or in this case mugs, the PR is that the Ukrainians are holding the line and Putin’s getting desperate.
“Putin’s ‘unacceptable’ casualties could lead to ‘social revolt’ in Russia | Maj Gen Chip Chapman”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQisliC7blk&ab_channel=TimesRadio>
Any amount of that nonsense being pumped out all over the place by the journalists: when the Ukrainians have held the line for a bit longer they can go on the offensive and finally defeat the demoralised and seriously weakened Russian army. The worse the war goes the more desperate the journalists are to get us believing the happy talk. It’s only a few months until the next presidential election and the journalists believe they can keep fooling us mugs that long. They could be right.
Moving up the PR scale the more serious outlets, particularly the American but also solid upmarket neocon outlets like Die Welt or the FT, are recognising that that nonsense won’t answer any more. Not for anyone with two brain cells to rub together. So they’re running with the line that all that’s needed is for the Ukrainians to agree to the loss of Crimea and the Donbass and then there’ll be a “ceasefire”. Then the Ukrainians can join NATO. Or the EU. Or the Galactic Federation or something.
That upmarket version of the happy talk being put out predicated on the assumption that 1, we’re going to supply the Ukrainians with vast quantities of weapons we haven’t got and 2, that those weapons we haven’t got will be used by Ukrainian soldiers who no longer exist.
But there have got to be some in the Pentagon who know about real soldiering. Who know that the Russians are building up an unstoppable head of steam. I cannot believe that the US spends near a trillion on defence and related activities and doesn’t get a single proper general for the money. I know for a fact we in the UK, and Germany and France, have some generals who aren’t just talking heads so you must have some too. Somewhere.
If you do, then they know the thing’s over. Presumably, they’re also hoping to keep the thing going until after the next presidential election.
In the meantime the Azov types are talking of shooting at sight those “Colorados” who try to evade conscription. Of whom there are a fast increasing number. Because those the Azov types do manage to drag off the streets and send to the front are getting killed or crippled at the rate of some 2000 per day.
All this so the chickenhawks of the West, happily fighting to the last Ukrainian just as long as they don’t have to do any fighting themselves, can put off the inevitable defeat just a little longer.
Putin is sending a message to his troops that if they get caught, he will do what he can to get them back and that includes taking hostages. I think especially the US Government should declare that any US citizen traveling to Russia and ending up in jail, will have no effort to free them. If you are that dumb, you deserve anything that will happen to you.
Lars,
While his troops on the battlefield are often left to die from their wounds on that battlefield.
I do agree that we should make travel to certain countries for other than official reasons subject to some measure short of arrest, perhaps temporary confiscation of passport. Unfortunately, we will always try to get our fools back who think they know better.
Putin can care less about his military, but he values his agents sent abroad. I recently saw a report that he is turning air force personnel into assault troops. That seems to be an act of desperation. The good news is that he now seems to consider that Trump will not be the next US president and thus he agreed to the prisoner exchange.
Ukraine is winning, all they need is more money and less strings.
There are other ways of looking at it than your myopic and extremely biased view, Lars.
For example, Putin is pretty sure Trump will be elected and he wanted to get a favorable deal from the weak Biden admin., which is desperate to have something they can campaign on, with a little spin, of course, as a small win; since they really have nothing else other than “scary orange bad”.
Oh that’s right, you still buy into the BS that Trump and Putin are pals because the nuz sez so – or, again, because it’s all you have, even if fake.
for another example, 17 trump campaign staff had over 100 meetings w/ Russians during the ’16 election. trumpists deny it even happened in order to avoid having to explain it – from the Roy Cohn School of PR.
I admit it may not have been about influencing the election (a la Nixon w/ NVN & Reagan w/ Iran), but more in line w/ trump’s values. corrupt deals (both private biz & state policy) for cash (like the $10M Egyptian Deal). trump’s consistently corrupt – it’s been his core competency since his old man began underwriting the kid’s soon-to-be bankruptcies.
your narrative is poor fiction. giving Biden – Harris a win can only hurt trump at this stage. next thing ya know, the Un one will stop answering his phone calls. vlad, leash in hand, reminded trump who’s calling the shots (& everyone watching too) in the unlikely event he wins. while signaling to Harris that deals can be struck between the most unlikely opposing players in fraught times.
our latest aged & declining candidate may not even make it to election day. or his faux hillbilly side kick for that matter. perilous times for our poor billionaires, holy rollers, racists & the grifter class.
Ked,
It’s called diplomacy. It’s part of the job to talk to the other major powers in the world, especially when you’re cooperating with them on everything from the international space station to fighting ISIS. Starting out prior to taking office is called being proactive so you can hit the ground running once in office. It’s a good idea.
You know better. As a hardcore leftist party loyalist you are merely disingenuously propagating the talking points as if they are serious – and you’re not fooling or convincing anyone.
gee Eric, & I thought that was what Biden was doing… what w/ the Dept of State & all.
trump’s bent out of shape ’cause he can’t imagine anyone but himself getting attention … for anything. esp after claiming he’s the only soul in the universe that could possibly achieve a hostage negotiation. he’s almost running out of self-referencing superlatives. cancel that… that crap is running on an 8track tape loop lodged within his rapidly shrinking brain.
I’ve fooled tons of Lost Cause racists, violence-spouting extremists, & religious nutcases in my decades of deep cover in the Deep South. I pass & that’s how to understand them so well (that & an academic tour through American history). far better than Thiel’s Yaley pawn – but he’s gained fame & fortune, so he must be right. convincing? ha – you are no target. yet I’ve turned more than a few. friends (registered republicans!) had direct interaction w/ trump… one in biz (about 20 yrs ago), the other in sport (in the ’70s). independently, they testified; he’s a cheat & an asshole. so I do my part – which won’t change the EC vote in my neighborhood, but what can ya do? … I was brought up right.
last weekend at an evening (too damn hot otherwise) outdoor concert (Americana, natch) I ran into a friend I hadn’t see in years. traditionally gop, he was planning to vote straight party as per usual. over a beer afterwards, I explained what was at stake for him & family (besides a place in heaven – I’m a pragmatist). now, he’s halfway free to feel better about teaching the gqp a lesson. we’ll talk again, over beers w/ a few other old friends before Nov. I believe I’ll get him across the chasm, as I have for others I care for down he’ah.
hardcore leftist party loyalist? that’s a laugh. relativists are not hardcore. leftist? a hackneyed joke term… like rightist. party loyalist? you’ve never read anything I’ve posted here for over 15 yrs (or hidebound processing). if the Constitution wasn’t so structurally flawed, we’d be long done w/ the ossified pair we’re stuck with. a national tragedy, all around.
TTG,
If we prevent people from traveling to the other side of the Iron Curtain to see with their own eyes what is really going on, then we will have transformed into the Soviet Union.
A friend of mine grew up in Tashkent. When he was 12 years old his mother went to England on a trade mission and came back and told her son what she had seen there. It was at that point that he realized that everything he had believed about his country was a lie.
Let’s not turn the USA into the Soviet Union.
TTG,
Tucker Carlson went to Russia and came back unscratched. And with a very different opinion about the country than what you have. Perhaps Americans should be free to figure out things for themselves.
James –
Of course he came back unscratched. He’s known as the ‘Moscow Megaphone’. Why would Putin want to silence him?
Of course, Americans should be able to figure out things for themselves. But if they go to Russia and get taken hostage, they should also figure out how to get back for themselves and without any help from the government. Regarding Tucker Carlson, he is obviously not worth much.
Can’t wait for Blinken to get the Americans held hostage by Hamas back. What do they need to do that, besides cater to the Palestine wing of the Left?
Meanwhile in Gitmo:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/08/defense-sec-austin-revokes-plea-deal-for-9-11-masterminds/
Get it straight from DoD here:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3860710/secretary-austin-signs-memo-withdrawing-from-the-pre-trial-agreements-in-the-91/
It would be nice if Biden did not distract from genuine accomplishments with weird-old-guy behavior. This is the second time I know of that he’s made awkward physical contact with a very young teenage girl and offered “harmless” dating advice. Well, it’s only a few more months.
has he raped anyone? paid off a whore? America needs to know.
Stephanie,
“weird-old-guy behavior”? Whatever are you talking about. He was in perfect health according to all the Democratic leaders and MSM outlets. Until his debate with Trump. You just noticed the pedophilia conduct after all these years?
“only a few more months”
Ha ha ha we got away with it. Ha ha ha……..
He is perfectly mentally capable to be president. Just not to campaign. No one is shoving papers under his face to sign or just implementing policy without his knowing.
Fred,
The deception around Biden’s decline is a scandal in itself and it’s a story yet to be told. He looked bad on the tarmac, mouth hanging open when he wasn’t speaking, hands and arms frozen at his sides as if in suspension. But you could tell by what he said that he was deeply invested in this swap. He gave himself a lot of the credit, talking about “my” relationships and alliances instead of “ours,” but that’s our Joe and also a lot of this probably was personal. Of course that reliance on past experience and personal relationships can and has backfired on him.