By The opinion
02 Aug 2024, 00:13 AM EDT
President Joe Biden and the vice president Kamala Harris welcomed three Americans freed by Russia in a complex prisoner exchange involving 24 people held in six countries, when they arrived on U.S. soil Thursday night.
A plane carrying a Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, to the Navy veteran Paul Whelan already the Russian-American radio journalist Alsou Kurmasheva landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after they were released as part of the exchange that also involved Germany, Slovenia, Poland and Norway.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, A US green card holder and Kremlin critic, he was also released but chose to go to Germany, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
As part of the deal, Russia released 16 prisoners while Western countries freed eight Russians. The prisoners were exchanged at an airstrip in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday morning.
Whelan, who has been in prison since 2018, was sentenced to 16 years for espionage and had spent the longest time in Russian prisons, He was the first to get off the plane and hugged President Biden, before reuniting with his sister Elizabeth.
Gershkovich, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, He was arrested in March 2023 in Russia and sentenced last month to 16 years in prison. He was received by Biden and Harris and by his parents and greeted his colleagues from the press who had been waiting for hours for the arrival of those released.
The emotional welcome was completed with a meeting with the family of the Radio Free Europe journalist Alsou Kurmashevawho hugged President Biden and was emotional to be reunited with her two daughters and husband after more than a year in detention in Russia.
Whelan and Gershkovich were jailed in Russia on espionage charges which their families and the United States vehemently rejected. The United States considered that both were unjustly detained.
Kurmasheva was arrested in June 2023 and was accused of spreading false information about the Russian military.
President Biden assured that I knew this moment would come for all Americans detained in Russia and said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin is: “stop.”
Biden assured that this prisoner exchange agreement would not have been possible without the support of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Slovenian government, which allowed the release of prisoners requested by Russia in the exchange.
Biden said journalists working in Russia should not be afraid, but should not “take unnecessary risks.”
The United States and several European allies on Thursday carried out an exchange of 24 prisoners with Russia, the largest since the Cold War: 16 were released from Russia to return to their countries and eight were released from American and European prisons to go to Russia.
The freed Americans will be flown tonight to San Antonio Air Force Base in Texas, where they will be treated in a program known as PISA (post-isolation support activities), to begin life in freedom in the United States after several years in Russian prisons.
Keep reading:
• US and Russia agree to prisoner exchange
• Biden praises the release of American prisoners in Russia
• Russia and the West carry out the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War with 24 people freed