Evan Gershkovich and his mother, Ella Milman, following Gershkovich’s arrival in the US post-prisoner swap with Russia, Andrews Air Base, Maryland, USA, 1 August 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/JIM LO SCALZO
The 16 people freed from Russian jails on Thursday in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War received a hero’s welcome from their families, friends, and the politicians that worked for their release upon their arrival in Washington DC and Cologne in the early hours of Friday morning.
US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris were at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington to meet freed journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva and former US Marine Paul Whelan as they stepped off their plane from Ankara, with both politicians embracing each returnee as they stepped back onto US soil.
In his first comment to journalists after his release, Gershkovich said he felt “fine” and that he had been happy to see Russian opposition politicians included in Thursday’s exchange, but warned that the many other political prisoners still behind bars in Russia must not be forgotten.
“I spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where everyone I sat with was a political prisoner. Nobody knows them publicly, they have various political beliefs, they are not all connected with Navalny supporters, who everyone knows about. I would potentially like to see if we could do something about them as well. I’d like to talk to people about that in the next weeks and months”, Gershkovich said.
The White House released footage of the families of Gershkovich, Whelan, Kurmasheva and freed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza with Biden in the Oval Office as they awaited the arrival of their relatives on Thursday. Earlier they had been able to speak to their loved ones for the first time in months in a phone call facilitated by the White House as the prisoners took their first flight from Moscow to the Turkish capital Ankara where they were exchanged.
During that call, Kara-Murza said that “no word is strong enough” to describe his emotions at being freed after serving 15 months of a 25-year sentence for “treason” for his criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite his severe health issues.
“I was sure I’m going to die in prison, because I still don’t believe what’s happening. I still think I’m sleeping in my prison cell in Omsk instead of hearing your voice. But I just want you to know that you’ve done a wonderful thing by saving so many people”, Kara-Murza told Biden.
Kara-Murza’s wife Yevgenia expressed her “huge thanks to everyone involved” in the prisoner exchange, adding that her family was “still in shock, but the children heard their dad’s voice”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined crowds of supporters and journalists, including allies of the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny, at Cologne Bonn Airport on Thursday evening in anticipation of a second plane’s arrival from Ankara carrying the remaining freed prisoners including politician Ilya Yashin, Navalny campaigner Vadim Ostanin and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko, among others.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressed reporters as freed prisoners from Russia arrive at Cologne Bonn Airport. Photo: EPA-EFE / CHRISTOPH REICHWEIN / POOL
None of the freed prisoners who arrived in Cologne made a public appearance, with reports later emerging that they were transferred to a local hospital to undergo quarantine until Sunday.
Scholz told journalists gathered at the airport that the prisoner exchange had been the “right decision” and stressed that Germany was a “society for whom the idea of freedom is important” before wishing all the freed prisoners good health.
Yashin later posted a photo of himself and Vadim Ostanin, still wearing their prison uniforms, with Navalny allies Leonid Volkov, Maria Pevchikh and Ivan Zhdanov, thanking “everyone who had been worried” and promising to “tell everything soon”.
Photo: Ilya Yashin
