TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A look at some of those released Thursday in the largest East-West civilian prisoner swap since the Cold War:
Released by Russia and Belarus
EVAN GERSHKOVICH, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was detained in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in March 2023. Without providing evidence, authorities accused him of “gathering secret information” at the CIA’s behest about a military equipment factory — an allegation that Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently denied. Jailed since then, a court convicted Gershkovich, 32, of espionage in July after a closed trial and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.
PAUL WHELAN, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was arrested in 2018 in Moscow, where he was attending a friend’s wedding. He was accused of espionage, convicted in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Whelan, 54, has rejected the charges as fabricated.
ILYA YASHIN is a prominent Kremlin critic who was serving an 8 1/2-year sentence for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Yashin, a former member of a Moscow municipal council, was one of the few well-known opposition activists to stay in Russia since the war.
RICO KRIEGER, a German medical worker, was convicted in Belarus of terrorism charges in June, and sentenced to death. He was pardoned Tuesday by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Released by Germany
VADIM KRASIKOV was convicted in 2021 of shooting to death Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity, in a Berlin park. The German judges concluded it was an assassination ordered by the Russian security services. Krasikov, 58, was sentenced to life imprisonment. President Vladimir Putin this year hinted at a possible swap for Krasikov.