Multiple reports up to 16 high profile prisoners were moved in Russia in a prisoner swap
Also unconfirmed Reports Evan may be on a plane bound for NYC now
Also unconfirmed Reports Evan may be on a plane bound for NYC now
WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich may be released in prisoner swap
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BREAKING: American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. marine Paul Whelan were released from imprisonment in Russia on Thursday as part of a prisoner swap deal.
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The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) on Threads
BREAKING: American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. marine Paul Whelan were released from imprisonment in Russia on Thursday as part of a prisoner swap deal.
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mugatu
Ranger
Anyone with American citizenship that goes to Russia is simply giving Russia a chance to get someone back from a US prison... probably someone that is a major criminal. They periodically frame people for spying or arrest them for low level crimes to use for trade.
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Don't go to Russia with US citizenship, even if you're dual citizen.
L.A. ballerina goes on trial for treason in Russia after donating funds to Ukraine
Ksenia Karelina was born in Russia but had built a new life as an aesthetician at a Los Angeles spa.
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Don't go to Russia with US citizenship, even if you're dual citizen.
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Donald Trump recently said that Gershkovich will only be released if he wins the election: “Vladimir Putin…Will do that for me, and I don't believe he'll do it for anyone else”
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Republicans against Trump (@republicansagainsttrump) on Threads
Donald Trump recently said that Gershkovich will only be released if he wins the election: “Vladimir Putin…Will do that for me, and I don't believe he'll do it for anyone else”
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Crazy!
Their parents, Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, were among 24 prisoners swapped as part of a complex, multi-country deal that saw high-profile American detainees and Russian dissidents freed in return.
The pair had been posing as an Argentine couple in Slovenia where they were convicted of spying. Their two children flew back with them on Thursday from Turkey.
The boy and girl “found out that they were Russian only when the plane took off from Ankara,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted them on the tarmac in Spanish as they didn’t speak Russian and didn’t even know who Putin was, according to Peskov.
“When the children came down the plane’s steps – they don’t speak Russian – and Putin greeted them in Spanish, he said ‘Buenas noches,’” Peskov said. “They asked their parents yesterday who it was that was meeting them, they didn’t even know who Putin was.”
After coming down the plane’s stairs, Dultseva, holding her tears, hugged Putin, who was standing on the red carpet rolled on the tarmac holding bouquets of flowers. Putin kissed Dultseva on the cheek and shoulder, and gave her and her daughter bouquets.
Putin briefly hugged Dultsev too and then the rest of the released Russians, before the group walked together on the red carpet away from the plane.
Thursday’s massive swap was the result of years of complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations involving the US, Russia, Belarus and Germany, ultimately leading Berlin to agree to Moscow’s key demand – releasing convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov.
A total of eight people, including Krasikov, were swapped back to Russia in exchange for the release of 16 people who were held in Russian detention, including former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans.
Dultsev and Dultseva pleaded guilty to espionage in a court in Ljubljana on Wednesday and were sentenced to serve time in prison.
While living undercover in Slovenia, Dultsev posed as an IT businessman named Ludvig Gisch. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to more than a year and a half in prison, which the court said was equivalent to time spent. He was set to be deported to Russia and was banned from entering Slovenia for five years.
Dultseva posed as an art dealer and gallery owner and went by the name Maria Rosa Mayer Munos. She was also set to be deported.
During the call with journalists, Peskov also revealed some additional details of prisoner exchange negotiations between Russia and the United States, saying that they were primarily conducted through the FSB and the CIA.
When asked about other Russians detained abroad, Peskov said that “the fate of all our Russians who are held in custody abroad, in the United States, is a matter of constant concern for all our relevant agencies, which will continue the relevant work.”
Children of undercover Russian spy couple only learned their nationality on flight to Moscow
The children of two Russian intelligence agents, who were among the detainees released as part of a historic prisoner swap, only discovered their nationality when they were being flown to Moscow, the Kremlin said Friday.Their parents, Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, were among 24 prisoners swapped as part of a complex, multi-country deal that saw high-profile American detainees and Russian dissidents freed in return.
The pair had been posing as an Argentine couple in Slovenia where they were convicted of spying. Their two children flew back with them on Thursday from Turkey.
The boy and girl “found out that they were Russian only when the plane took off from Ankara,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted them on the tarmac in Spanish as they didn’t speak Russian and didn’t even know who Putin was, according to Peskov.
“When the children came down the plane’s steps – they don’t speak Russian – and Putin greeted them in Spanish, he said ‘Buenas noches,’” Peskov said. “They asked their parents yesterday who it was that was meeting them, they didn’t even know who Putin was.”
After coming down the plane’s stairs, Dultseva, holding her tears, hugged Putin, who was standing on the red carpet rolled on the tarmac holding bouquets of flowers. Putin kissed Dultseva on the cheek and shoulder, and gave her and her daughter bouquets.
Putin briefly hugged Dultsev too and then the rest of the released Russians, before the group walked together on the red carpet away from the plane.
Thursday’s massive swap was the result of years of complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations involving the US, Russia, Belarus and Germany, ultimately leading Berlin to agree to Moscow’s key demand – releasing convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov.
A total of eight people, including Krasikov, were swapped back to Russia in exchange for the release of 16 people who were held in Russian detention, including former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans.
Dultsev and Dultseva pleaded guilty to espionage in a court in Ljubljana on Wednesday and were sentenced to serve time in prison.
While living undercover in Slovenia, Dultsev posed as an IT businessman named Ludvig Gisch. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to more than a year and a half in prison, which the court said was equivalent to time spent. He was set to be deported to Russia and was banned from entering Slovenia for five years.
Dultseva posed as an art dealer and gallery owner and went by the name Maria Rosa Mayer Munos. She was also set to be deported.
During the call with journalists, Peskov also revealed some additional details of prisoner exchange negotiations between Russia and the United States, saying that they were primarily conducted through the FSB and the CIA.
When asked about other Russians detained abroad, Peskov said that “the fate of all our Russians who are held in custody abroad, in the United States, is a matter of constant concern for all our relevant agencies, which will continue the relevant work.”
Kremlin Finally Admits Swapped Russian Prisoners Were Russian Spies
The Kremlin has admitted that several of the people returned to Russia in Thursday’s prisoner swap were spies.Among those released in the multinational exchange was Vadim Krasikov, an assassin who had been serving a life sentence in Germany for murdering one of Moscow’s enemies in a park in Berlin. On Friday, the Kremlin confirmed that Krasikov was an employee of Russia’s FSB security service who had served in the agency’s elite Alpha Group special forces unit.
Krasikov was the first of the returnees to be embraced by Russian President Vladimir Putin after their plane landed in Moscow on Thursday evening, underscoring the hitman’s importance to the Kremlin.
In 2019, Krasikov followed Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen rebel leader, to a busy children’s playground in a park in Berlin. In broad daylight, he then pulled out a pistol and executed Khangoshvili in front of children and their parents, witnesses said at his trial. Prosecutors said during the proceedings that Krasikov was likely working with the FSB.
Putin, meanwhile, had openly sought Krasikov’s return to Russia even while remaining vague about the killer’s ties to the intelligence services. In his February interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin clearly referred to Krasikov when discussing a potential prisoner swap deal. “That person, due to patriotic sentiments, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals,” Putin said, later adding: “Whether he did it of his own volition or not, that is a different question.”
The Kremlin was also unequivocal Friday about two other people released in the swap deal. Artyom Dultsev and Anna Dultseva—a couple who were returned to Russia along with their two children—were arrested in Slovenia in 2022 and accused of pretending to be Argentinians while spying on the NATO state. They both pleaded guilty to espionage charges in Ljubljana on Wednesday ahead of the prisoner swap.
Now Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed the pair were in fact deep-cover “illegals,” secret agents who are trained to pass as foreigners while living under fake identities in foreign countries. In a detail reminiscent of the FX show The Americans, Peskov confirmed that even the couple’s children were kept in the dark about their true identity.
“The children of the ‘illegal’ intelligence agents who flew in yesterday only learnt that they were Russian after the plane took off [from Moscow] for Ankara,” Peskov told reporters, according to Reuters. “Before that, they didn’t know that they were Russian and that they had anything to do with our country. And you probably saw that when the children came down the plane’s steps that they don’t speak Russian and that Putin greeted them in Spanish. He said ‘Buenos Nochas.’”
He added that the kids “didn’t even know who Putin was.” “This is how the ‘illegals’ work,” Peskov said. “They make such sacrifices out of dedication to their work.”
The spies were among eight adults that Russia received in the prisoner swap—the largest between Russia and Western countries since the Cold War. In return, Russia released 16 people including American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. marine Paul Whelan, both of whom the U.S. considered wrongfully detained.
Rep. Scott Perry rebuked for comparing freed Russian prisoner to spoon
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) faced backlash Friday after he insulted on live television the prisoners freed in President Joe Biden's historic deal with Russia.Perry likened Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to a piece of cutlery in his dismissive analysis on Fox News of Biden's swap with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Essentially we've traded journalists for murderers and thieves," Perry said. "It's like trading a rifle for a spoon."
Perry's criticism echoed those of former President Donald Trump, who responded to news that Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan had been freed with an angry Truth Social post that did not include either man's name.
"This just emboldens Vladimir Putin to continue to broker these kind of deals and to take our people prisoner to get these kind of deals," Perry said. "It's patently absurd, it's a terrible deal."
Biden has responded to criticism by asking why Trump did not secure a better deal when he was president.
Perry's comment spurred much criticism of his own from people such as national security attorney and political commentator Bradley Moss.
"I say we drop Scott Perry into a foreign prison and tell him we will only get him back when we have a perfect deal," Moss wrote on X, "and not a moment sooner."
Democratic strategist Matt McDermott said he was infuriated that Perry had compared Gershkovich, who spent more than a year in a Russian prison accused of espionage charges condemned by the U.S. State Department, to a common table item.
"Is any journalist — anyone? — going to speak out against Republicans comparing the life of Evan Gershkovich to a spoon?" McDermott wrote. "It’s disgusting. There’s zero difference between this swap deal and others in recent history. They’re just mad because Biden succeeded where Trump failed."
British film director Duncan Jones chastised Perry for his broad-strokes rebuke of complex international operation.
"Does Perry really think Putin is so short on murderers & criminals that we tipped the balance for his regime by sending them back to him? Jones wrote. "Those punks will have been RUNG OUT of info by now. And in exchange we got back Americans. How much is an American life worth to Scott Perry?"
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Released prisoner accuses Russia of psychological torture
BERLIN (Reuters) - Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza who was released from jail on Thursday in a major prisoner swap said he and others were subject to illegal psychological torture during their imprisonment.During a news conference in Bonn, Kara-Murza said he was allowed to speak with his wife just once and his children twice in more than two years of imprisonment. A Christian, he was banned from attending church.
He also spent 10 months in solitary confinement - much longer than allowed by law, he said.
