‘Welcome back’: Biden greets WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich and freed US prisoners
President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris greeted the Americans released in the huge prisoner swap | WATCH
US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris greeted journalist Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans as they arrived back on US soil after being freed by Russia in a huge prisoner swap.
Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich, former US marine Paul Whelan, and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva were met with cheers from waiting family and friends as they disembarked a plane at Joint Base Andrews near Washington and each embraced Mr Biden and Ms Harris.
They were among two dozen prisoners released earlier Thursday (Friday AEST) in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.
A fourth freed prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian Kremlin critic with US residency, was also among those freed but was returning separately to the United States.
Gershkovich stepped back onto US soil to a hero’s welcome from Mr Biden and Ms Harris. capping a lengthy wrongful detainment and conviction in Russia that culminated in the most complex prisoner swap between Western allies and Russia since the Cold War.
Gershkovich, who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he, the Wall Street Journal and the US government vehemently deny, emerged from a government aircraft.
Gershkovich waved as he got off the plane and then was greeted by Mr Biden and Ms Harris.
Arriving on a muggy summer night, Gershkovich landed at Joint Base Andrews after a roughly 10-hour flight he boarded in Ankara, Turkey, following the massive prisoner swap earlier Thursday.
In addition to the president, vice-president, other officials and a massive throng of media, Gershkovich was greeted by his immediate family: his father Mikhail, his mother Ella Milman, his sister Danielle and his brother in law, Anthony Huczek.
A fourth freed prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian Kremlin critic with US residency, was also among those freed but was returning separately to the United States.
Addressing reporters on the tarmac, Mr Biden noted the role other countries played in the prisoner swap.
“The toughest call on this one was for other countries, because I asked them to do some things that were against their immediate self-interest. And it was very difficult for them to do, particularly Germany and Slovenia.”
Mr Biden added: “I don’t buy this idea that you’re going to let these people rot in jail because other people may be captured.”
Ms Harris said the prisoner exchange was “an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy”.
“This is an incredible day. I can see it in the families, in their eyes and in their cries.”
In total 10 Russians, including two minors, were exchanged for 16 Westerners and Russians imprisoned in Russia in a dramatic exchange on the airport tarmac in Turkey’s capital Ankara.
“Their brutal ordeal is over,” Mr Biden told a news conference at the White House earlier, flanked by the overjoyed families of the freed prisoners.
Ms Harris earlier welcomed their release after an “appalling perversion of justice”.
The most high profile prisoner was Gershkovich, 32, who was detained in Russia in March 2023 on a reporting trip and sentenced in July to 16 years in prison on spying charges that were denounced by the US.
Gershkovich’s family said in a statement that they had “waited 491 days for Evan’s release”. “We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close,” they said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier given his own hero’s welcome to the freed prisoners from his country, in a mirror image of the ceremony that would unfold in the US.
They included Vadim Krasikov, a Russian intelligence agent imprisoned in Germany for assassinating a former Chechen rebel.
“I want to congratulate you on your return to the motherland,” Putin said. The historic swap happened after months of top secret negotiations and involved Russian prisoners freed from Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and the US, and on the other side from Russia and Belarus.
The freed Americans and their families are expected to board a separate plane bound for Brooke Army Medical Center near San Antonio in Texas. There, the former prisoners will be evaluated medically and psychologically, and begin the reintegration process on US soil.
– AFP/The Wall Street Journal
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