Russia-US prisoner swap – live: Major exchange including Evan Gershkovich underway

Many Russia watchers are scratching their heads as to why Vladimir Putin, who of late has shown no willingness to negotiate swaps for those he has imprisoned, appears to have suddenly taken an about turn.

Just five months ago, Alexei Navalny, viewed as a top priority for future swaps, died in his Arctic Circle penal colony in what his allies and the West say was murder. His team later claimed Navalny was about to be swapped but Putin changed his mind and ordered him killed.

Sam Greene, professor in Russian politics at King’s College London, suggests that this latest move was an attempt by Russia “to isolate Ukraine”.

“If I had to hazard a guess, then, it would be that the Kremlin sees an opportunity to try to isolate Ukraine,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“By making this exchange, Moscow is seeking to demonstrate that (a) it can negotiate in good faith, and (b) it is willing to do deals with the West.

“This will strengthen the hand of those who have been calling for Western governments to impose a ceasefire on Kyiv and weaken those who see such a ceasefire as detrimental to Ukrainian and European security in the near, medium and long terms.”

You can read his comments in full below.

Below we have some more details on the Russian government plane that has just arrived in Ankara as Turkish officials report they will preside over a prisoner swap later today.

The flight took off from Vnukovo International Airport in southwest Moscow at 10.44am (GMT), arriving in Ankara, central Turkey, three hours and 42 minutes later.

It remains unclear who is on the flight, but Kremlin-approved state media claimed that an exchange will take place at the airport at 7pm local time, which is around 4pm GMT.

Flight trackers have shown at least one plane from Russia’s ‘Special Flight Squadron’ arriving in Ankara a few minutes ago from Moscow.

The plane, RSD939, arrived in Ankara this afternoon. It is reportedly the same plane that was used to swap US basketball player Brittney Griner in December 2022.

It comes as a Reuters witness claimed to have seen a plane land at the airport.

The Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) said it would coordinate an extensive prisoner swap on Thursday, amid signs of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on one side and the United States, Germany and Slovenia on the other.

“A (prisoner) exchange operation will take place today under the coordination of our organisation,” MIT said in a statement. “Our organization has undertaken a major mediation role in this exchange operation, which is the most comprehensive of the recent period.”

Below we have an explainer on who is Vladimir Kara-Murza, the British-Russian dissident rumoured to be included in the prisoner exchange today.

Russia’s main prize in exchange for Mr Gershkovich was expected to be Vadim Krasikov, an FSB assassin who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany over the murder of a Chechen-Georgian former rebel fighter in Berlin’s Tiergarten park in 2019.

Five Russians in jail in the United States were mooted as others to be swapped in the deal after they reportedly disappeared from the Federal Bureau of Prisons database.

They include Vladislav Klyushin, a Kremlin-linked businessman who was serving nine years in the US on hacking and insider trading charges.

Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva is said to be the third US citizen who will be freed in the prisoner exchange with Russia soon, according to a senior Biden administration official

Ms Kurmasheva will be released alongside Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan, the official confirmed to CBS News.

Appearing in court, Evan Gershkovich would often crack a smile or laugh for the cameras from inside the glass-walled cage he was being held in. On another occasion he made a heart shape with his hands and put it to his chest. A message to family, friends and the wider world that the trumped up espionage charges for which he was handed a 16-year sentence would not break him.

It is a fate he had seen many times, dissidents, critics and journalists jailed – but one that increased significantly in the wake of Vladimir Putin‘s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Gershkovich tweeted in July 2022 that summer that it had become “a regular practice of watching people you know get locked away for years.” Less than a year later he was in prison himself, becoming the first US journalist to be accused of spying in Russia since the Cold War.

The 32-year-old was detained for just doing his job, a reporting trip for his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), to the city of Yekaterinburg – around 900 miles east of Moscow. A day later he was pictured being taken inside a Moscow courthouse, flanked by security personnel, wearing a mustard coat, its hood over his head.

Former US Marine Paul Whelan, has been in Russian custody since he was arrested just after Christmas in 2018 on what American officials have described as bogus spying charges.

He had travelled to Russia several times on business prior to his arrest by the FSB at a Hotel Metropol Moscow on 28 December 2018.

He was accused of taking delivery of a USB drive containing security-sensitive information and formally charged with espionage offences on 3 January, which Mr Whelan strongly denied.

Held at Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, he was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison on 15 June 2020.