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The first photo of three Americans — marine Paul Whelan and journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva — has emerged after the historic prison swap.
The photo showed the three Americans smiling while holding the American flag. The trio were released in Turkey on Thursday in the massive prison swap between Russia and western nations.
Wall Street Journal assistant editor Paul Beckett shared the photo on Thursday afternoon.
Two dozen prisoners were freed in the exchange — 16 of them from Russian captivity — marking it as the largest swap since the Cold War.
President Joe Biden celebrated the historic exchange, speaking from the White House hours after the swap: “Their brutal ordeal is over, and now they’re free.” He added: “It’s an incredible relief.”
Biden later shared another photo, showing the group on a plane, writing on X: “After enduring unimaginable suffering and uncertainty, the Americans detained in Russia are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families.”
“The president is gathering the families of Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza at the White House to share with them the news that an exchange is underway to secure the release of their loved ones from Russia,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday morning.
The release ends the one-year detainment of Gershkovich, 32, who was detained in Yekaterinburg in March by the Federal Security Service on charges of espionage while he was on a reporting trip for the Journal. In July, the reporter was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges by a Russian court.
Whelan, the former Marine, was arrested in 2018. At the time, he had been working as a director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner and occasionally traveled to Russia on business. The arrest came as he was attending a friend’s wedding. Two years later, he was convicted to 16 years in prison.
“Paul was held hostage for 2,043 days. His case was that of an American in peril, held by the Russian Federation as part of their blighted initiative to use humans as pawns to extract concessions,” the Whelan family wrote in a statement Thursday. “Paul Whelan is free.”
Kurmasheva, a journalist at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was given a six-and-a-half-year sentence in June 2024 after a Russian court convicted her of spreading false information about the Russian army.
Kara-Murza, a journalist and permanent resident of the US, was also released on Thursday. He was detained in April 2022. The following year, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison over his criticism of the war in Ukraine. Kara-Murza won a Pulitzer Prize for the columns he wrote at a Moscow detention center.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva are going to touch down “on American soil” later on Thursday when they arrive at Joint Base Andrews, where President Biden and Vice President Harris will welcome them, Sullivan said. Kara-Murza is heading to Germany to meet his family there before returning to the US, Sullivan.
