One spent more than 5½ years behind bars in Russia while other, higher-profile detainees were released ahead of him. Another was jailed for only a few months. They include journalists, veteran political activists and those simply opposed to the war in Ukraine. The youngest is 19, the oldest 71.
Among the Russians jailed in the West were alleged sleeper agents who lived double lives. Others were convicted of hacking computers. One was imprisoned for the brazen, daytime shooting death of a man in a Berlin park.
This photo combination shows, in the center, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and clockwise from top left are Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, corporate security executive and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Lilia Chanysheva, former coordinator of regional offices of the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny, co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Memorial Human Rights Centre Oleg Orlov, artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko, Russian opposition activist and former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin, government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service Alsu Kurmasheva and former head of Open Russia movement Andrei Pivovarov.
On Thursday, they walked free — part of the largest East-West civilian prisoner swap since the Cold War:
Prisoners released by Russia and Belarus
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich speaks with his lawyers April 23 from a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow.
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.
