US journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage, smiles from inside a glass defendants’ cage prior to a hearing in Yekaterinburg’s Sverdlovsk Regional Court on June 26, 2024.
Natalia Kolesnikova | Afp | Getty Images
A prisoner swap was underway between the United States, Russia, and other countries on Thursday, according to a senior Biden administration official.
The trade is a rare example of cooperation amid heightened political tensions between the U.S. and Russia, including from sanctions imposed on Russia and Russian officials over the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Relations between the two countries had been strained before the invasion, following Russian interference in the 2016 election and its annexation of Crimea.
The highest-profile U.S. prisoners in Russia right now are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. It is not confirmed that they are part of this swap.
Gershkovich, 32, detained in March 2023, was convicted of espionage by a Russian court this year and sentenced to 16 years in prison in July.
Whelan, 54, who has been detained since visiting Russia for a friend’s wedding in 2018, was also convicted of espionage and has been serving a 16-year sentence in a penal colony.
Among the highest-profile prisoner swaps in recent years was the December 2022 exchange of WNBA star Brittney Griner for notorious Russian arms dealer, Victor Bout, a weapons trafficker known as the “Merchant of Death.”
NBC reported in February that the U.S. had been working on a potential prisoner exchange involving Russians and Americans that could have included imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny, as well as Whelan and Gershkovich. But those efforts halted after Navalny’s death was announced on Feb. 16.