Taken from UNIVISION
Following a historic negotiation involving seven countries, including the United States and Russia, the US government announced the release of 16 people who had been unjustly sent to prison by the Russian authorities.
Among those released are the journalist from the newspaper The Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, a former US Navy officer, Russian-British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza and Russian-American reporter Alsu Kurmasheva.
According to the Biden administration, in addition to these four people, five other German citizens and seven Russian citizens considered political prisoners were released as a result of the agreement. The Putin government obtained in exchange the release of 10 Russian citizens, including two minors, who were imprisoned in the West.
Here’s what we know about some of the Americans released by Russia:
Journalist Gershkovich, 32, was convicted in July by Russian authorities for allegedly carrying out “espionage” work in Russia.
The US government, which had demanded the journalist’s release after his arrest in March 2023, called the trial a “farce.”
The journalist was arrested in Yekaterinburg while preparing a report on the Russian mercenary organization called Wagner Group.
The Russian government immediately filed charges of espionage, which Gershkovich denied.
The Wall Street Journal launched an intense campaign to demand the release of its reporter through the hashtag #FreeEvan.
Whelan, 54, was also sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage following his arrest in 2018.
In 1994, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy after serving as a police officer in Michigan.
His arrest occurred in 2018 while attending a wedding in Moscow, while he was working in the United States as head of global security for an auto parts company.
Following his arrest, the administration of then-President Donald Trump criticized the actions of the Russian authorities.
Russian reporter Kurmasheva, 47, who has permanent residency in the United States, was detained in October while visiting relatives in the city of Tatarstan.
Kurmasheva, who worked as a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was initially charged with failing to declare that she had a U.S. passport.
But authorities later accused her of being a “foreign agent” during her stay in Russia, despite it being her native country. The reporter denied the accusations.
Russian commentator, Kara-Murza, The 42-year-old, who had been a fierce critic of Putin’s government, was arrested in 2022 on charges of treason and allegedly spreading “false” information about Russia.
Following his arrest, the commentator was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Kara-Murza, who also has British nationality, denied the charges.
Kara-Murza won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, the most prestigious award in American journalism, in May for her contributions to The Washington Post, where she wrote about conditions in Russia under Putin.
The Pulitzer Prize organization said in awarding the prize to Kara-Murza that it recognized him for “his passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell.”
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