When Wall Street Journal reported Evan Gershkovich was arrested over a year ago and put in a Russian prison, his colleagues at the paper and his family were shocked. A push to free him and other Americans from Russian detention ensued, until Thursday’s news of a massive prisoner swap involving multiple countries.
“There was lots of chatter, but we didn’t celebrate until we knew his feet were on the ground in Ankara, in Turkey,” Paul Beckett, assistant editor at the Wall Street Journal, told Scripps News. “That he was out of Russian custody.”
“That was an amazing moment,” he said.
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Beckett has worked for the last nine months, full-time, in any way he could, to secure the release of Gershkovich.
Beckett was previously the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Bureau Chief.
The prisoner exchange Gershkovich was part of has now become the largest between Russia and Western nations since the Cold War, marking a day of freedom for several high-profile individuals on both sides.
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In exchange, for the prisoners it released, Russia received eight individuals held in the U.S., Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland.
Among the Russians at the center of the prisoner exchange was Vadim Krasikov, a killer and assassin who U.S. officials described as the “biggest fish” in the deal for the Russians. Krasikov had been serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 fatal shooting of a 40-year-old man in a Berlin park in broad daylight.
“Now we just hope that because it was so historic, hopefully it resets the table and everyone can find a way to deter this awful practice,” Beckett said.
Watch the full interview with Beckett above.
