Russia releases US journalist, ex-Marine in multi-nation prisoner swap: Report

The details of the prisoner swap, including the identities of those exchanged by the US and its allies, have not yet been officially confirmed.

Russia has released an American journalist, Evan Gershkovich, and a former US Marine, Paul Whelan, as part of a prisoner exchange involving multiple countries, according to news agency Bloomberg.

Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Russia, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges, which he and the US government vehemently denied. He was subsequently sentenced to 16 years in a high-security Russian prison.

Whelan, a former Marine who was working as a corporate security executive from Michigan, was detained in Moscow in 2018 and convicted on espionage charges. He has been serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison. Whelan and the US government have denied that he is a spy, and Washington has designated him as "wrongfully detained".

The details of the prisoner swap, including the identities of those exchanged by the US and its allies, have not yet been officially confirmed. However, sources familiar with the matter suggest that the deal involved a complex negotiation with multiple countries, the reports said.