Newly freed Americans back on US soil after landmark prisoner exchange with Russia

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris greet reporter Evan Gershkovich at Andrews Air Force Base following his release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
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This image released by the White House shows Evan Gershkovich, left, Alsu Kurmasheva, right, and Paul Whelan, second from right, and others aboard a plane, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, following their release from Russian captivity. (AP)
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Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with released Russian prisoners upon their arrival at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 1, 2024. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
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Updated 02 August 2024
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Newly freed Americans back on US soil after landmark prisoner exchange with Russia

  • Freed under the 24-person deal were a convicted Russian assassin and a cluster of Western journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others
  • Turkiye, which participated by hosting the location for the swap, said the exchange was ‘carried out’ by its intelligence service

WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual US-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them.

The trade unfolded 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. Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of swaps with Russia, as a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the returning Americans to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an innate imbalance: The US and allies gave up Russians charged or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others imprisoned by the country’s highly politicized legal system on charges seen by the West as trumped-up.
“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said, He added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”




Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with released Russian prisoners upon their arrival at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 1, 2024. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the US government vehemently denied. His family said in a statement released by the newspaper that “we can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close.” The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”

“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.

 

Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.
The dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of Navalny. Freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The Russian side got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. Throughout the negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his release, with Putin himself raising it.




In this image made from video provided by Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Aug. 1, 2024, Germany's Patrick Schoebel, center, is escorted by a Russian Federal Security Service agent, left, as they arrive at an airport outside Moscow. (AP)

At the time of Navalny’s death, officials were discussing a possible exchange involving Krasikov. But with that prospect erased, senior US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a fresh push to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a handful of the prisoners Russia released were either German nationals or dual German-Russian nationals.
Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the US, including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy; Poland sent back a man it detained on espionage charges.
“Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” Biden said.

 

All told, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh — Turkiye — participated by hosting the location for the swap, in Ankara.
Biden placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In an Oval Office address discussing his decision to drop his bid for a second term, Biden said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”
At one point Thursday, he grabbed the hand of Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, and said she’d practically been living at the White House as the administration tried to free Paul. He then motioned for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer and took her hand, telling the room it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped tears from her eyes.
The Biden administration has now brought home more than 70 Americans detained in other countries as part of deals that have required the US to give up a broad array of convicted criminals, including for drug and weapons offenses. The swaps, though celebrated with fanfare, have spurred criticism that they incentivize future hostage-taking and give adversaries leverage over the US and its allies.
The US government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has sought to defend the deals by saying the number of wrongfully detained Americans has actually gone down even as swaps have increased.
Tucker, the Journal’s editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate, writing in a letter: “We know the US government is keenly aware, as are we, that the only way to prevent a quickening cycle of arresting innocent people as pawns in cynical geopolitical games is to remove the incentive for Russia and other nations that pursue the same detestable practice.”




The Wall Street Journal editors and reporters listen to editor-in-chief Emma Tucker speak about the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich on Aug. 1, 2024, at The Wall Street Journal's office in New York. (The Wall Street Journal via AP)

Though she called for a change to the dynamic, “for now,” she wrote, “we are celebrating the return of Evan.”
Thursday’s swap of 24 prisoners surpassed a deal involving 14 people that was struck in 2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the US as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal, a double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018 were nearly killed in Britain by nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.
Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial for Gershkovich, which Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.
In a trial that concluded in two days in secrecy in the same week as Gershkovich’s, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military that her family, employer and US officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.
Gershkovich was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the US The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan, who was serving a 16-year prison sentence, had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy. That December, the US released notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who’d been jailed on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States government for making Paul’s freedom a reality,” his family said in a statement.


Philippine president to make first visit to UAE

Updated 25 November 2024
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Philippine president to make first visit to UAE

  • Marcos’ trip marks ‘significant and symbolic milestone,’ Manila envoy says
  • Philippines, UAE to sign new agreements on energy transition, artificial intelligence

Manila: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to meet his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday as he makes his inaugural trip to the Gulf nation.

The Philippines and UAE are celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations this year, with the two countries eyeing closer cooperation across many fields to mark the occasion, including in energy transition and artificial intelligence.

The working visit will be Marcos’s first to the UAE since he took office in 2022.

“The president will personally oversee the overall state of bilateral relations between the Philippines and the UAE, and witness the signing of several agreements across a wide array of areas of cooperation, such as energy transition, artificial Intelligence, judicial agreements and culture,” Philippine Ambassador to the UAE Alfonso A. Ver told Arab News on Monday.

The one-day trip marks a “significant and symbolic milestone” in bilateral ties, he added.

“⁠Bilateral relations between the two countries have reached a historic high, and have since expanded to new and innovative forms of cooperation,” Ver said, citing collaborations in space science, agriculture and digital infrastructure as examples.

“With President Marcos’s visit, the Philippines is keen to further boost the positive, robust, and comprehensive state and trajectory of our relationship with the UAE.”

The two countries are currently negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which has made “significant progress” as of early October, according to the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry.

Around one million Philippine nationals reside in the UAE, making it the second-largest employer of Filipino expats after Saudi Arabia.

“The president will also convey the gratitude of the Philippine government to the leaders of a nation that has tapped Filipino talent, allowing it to flourish in an environment that fosters kindness, respect, and tolerance,” the Presidential Communications Office said in a statement.

“It is expected that these productive dialogues will lead to agreements that will deepen the ties between the two countries … While the President’s visit will be short, the goodwill and opportunities it will create will be substantial, resulting in stronger Philippine-UAE relations.”


UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit, says foreign minister

Updated 51 min 48 sec ago
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UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit, says foreign minister

  • The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.


At least eight migrants drown off Greek island of Samos

Updated 25 November 2024
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At least eight migrants drown off Greek island of Samos

  • Greek coast guard finds bodies of six minors, two women
  • So far 39 people rescued, search and rescue operation continues

Greece’s coast guard has found the bodies of eight migrants — six minors and two women — who drowned off the island of Samos in the Aegean Sea, authorities said on Monday.
Greek police found a further 36 people alive in the northern part of Samos, while three people, trapped in a rocky area on the island, were rescued by coast guard officers, the coast guard said.
Aircraft and vessels assisted a search and rescue operation, it added.
According to a coast guard official, authorities were alerted to the incident by a non-governmental organization and estimate that about 50 people were on board the vessel that brought them off Samos.
Greece, in the southeast corner of the European Union, has long been a favored gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
More than one million crossed from Turkiye to Greece’s outlying eastern islands in 2015-2016. Many have drowned while attempting the perilous journey on flimsy boats.
The number of arrivals later dropped before surging again last year.
So far this year, about 54,000 migrants have reached Greece, the second largest number in southern Europe behind Italy. The vast majority of them arrived by sea, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.


Le Pen threatens to topple French government over budget

Updated 25 November 2024
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Le Pen threatens to topple French government over budget

  • The opposition on all sides of the spectrum have denounced the budget
  • Marine Le Pen downplayed the consequences of the budget being rejected

PARIS: French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen on Monday threatened to back a no confidence motion that could topple the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a standoff over the budget, saying after talks both sides were entrenched in their positions.
Months of political tensions since right-winger Barnier became prime minister at the helm of a minority government appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of this summer’s elections are coming to a head over the budget which has yet to be approved by parliament.
The opposition on all sides of the spectrum have denounced the budget, prompting Barnier to consider brandishing the weapon of article 49.3 of the constitution which allows a government to force through legislation without a vote in parliament.
However, that could prompt Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) to team up in an unholy alliance with the left-wing bloc in parliament and find enough numbers to topple the government in a confidence vote.
Le Pen entered the Matignon residence of the French premier for the breakfast meeting and was to be followed later in the afternoon by hard left France Unbowed (LFI) parliamentary party leader Mathilde Panot as Barnier seeks to hear voices across the board.
“My position has not changed. No more, it seems, than that (the position) of the prime minister has changed,” Le Pen after meeting Barnier, describing him as “at the same time courteous but also entrenched in his positions.”
Asked if the RN would back a no confidence motion, she replied: “Of course.”
Le Pen downplayed the consequences of the budget being rejected, saying she did not believe “in this notion that ‘if this budget is rejected, if there is a no confidence motion, it will be dramatic, there will be chaos, etc’.”
Further complicating the situation is the constitutional rule in France that there must be a one year gap between legislative elections, meaning that Macron cannot call polls until the summer to resolve the crisis.
“Michel Barnier is creating the conditions for a vote of no confidence,” RN deputy leader Sebastien Chenu said on Sunday.
But he insisted that the move would not paralyze France and that Macron still had options, including resigning before his term ends in 2027, something the president has previously ruled out.
“The president has several options... reappoint the same prime minister, appoint a new prime minister, resign if he has no other solution, or call a referendum,” he added.
Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon had warned in an interview published in the Le Parisien daily that France risked a “Greek-style situation” if the government was brought down, referring to Greece’s 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The issue comes at a critical time for three-time presidential candidate Le Pen, who fancies having her best ever crack at the Elysee in polls due in 2027.
Le Pen, 56, and other RN defendants are currently on trial accused of creating fake jobs at the EU parliament which they deny.
If convicted, she could receive a jail sentence and a ban from public office which would disqualify her from the presidential polls.
Her young lieutenant Jordan Bardella, 29, who is the RN party chief, is not among the accused and is seen by some as harboring his own presidential positions.
Baredella, who has just published his first book “Ce que je cherche” (“What I am Looking For”), told French television last week that “not having a criminal record is, for me, rule number one when you want to be an MP.”
While opponents dubbed him “Brutus” after the Roman politician who assassinated ex-ally Julius Ceasar, Le Pen denied any tensions with her protege, saying they had a “relationship of trust.”


Children killed in Mozambique election violence: HRW

Updated 25 November 2024
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Children killed in Mozambique election violence: HRW

  • The southern African nation has been rocked by unrest since an October 9 vote won by the ruling Frelimo party
  • Thousands of people have demonstrated across the country in recent weeks in protests brutally suppressed by the police

JOHANNESBURG: Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday that Mozambican security forces killed at least 10 children and injured dozens more in post-election violence.
The southern African nation has been rocked by unrest since an October 9 vote won by the ruling Frelimo party in power since independence but contested by the opposition.
Thousands of people have demonstrated across the country in recent weeks in protests brutally suppressed by the police.
One 13-year-old girl was “caught in a crowd of people fleeing tear gas and gunfire... One of the bullets hit her in the neck, and she instantly fell to the ground and died,” HRW said in a statement.
The rights group said it had documented “nine additional cases of children killed and at least 36 other children injured by gunfire during the protests.”
The authorities have not responded to HRW’s claims.
Police have also detained “hundreds of children, in many cases for days, without notifying their families, in violation of international human rights law,” HRW said.
President Filipe Nyusi, who is due to step down in January, condemned an “attempt to install chaos in our country” in a state of the nation address last week.
He said that 19 people had been killed in the recent clashes, five of them from the police force. More than 800 people were injured, including 66 police, he added.
Civil society groups recorded a higher death toll — with more than 67 people killed since the unrest began — and said that an estimated 2,000 others had been detained.
Nyusi, 65, has invited the main opposition leader, Venancio Mondlane, for talks.
Mondlane, who came in second after Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo, 47, but claims to have won, has been organizing most of the protests.
He said he would accept the president’s offer as long as the talks were held virtually and legal proceedings against him were dropped.
The 50-year-old is believed to have left the country for fear of arrest or attack but his whereabouts are unknown.