Washington – The biggest international prisoner exchange since the Cold War, 24 prisoners were sold on the tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday in a deal involving seven countries.
The complex deal, which secured the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelan, took months, with American and Western diplomats working for months to secure the release of 16 prisoners in exchange for eight wanted by Russia. .
While high-profile prisoner trading has occurred between Washington and Moscow for decades, until several years ago, it usually involved spies. More recently, he has been involved with Americans who are considered US wrongly arrested – former Marines, journalist and women’s basketball star.
Here are some important exchanges:
February 10, 1962
Bettmann
The first major exchange between the US and the Soviet Union took place more than 60 years ago on the Glienicke Bridge, which connected West Berlin to East Germany and became known as the “Bridge of Spies.”
The US sold convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel to pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose spy plane had been shot down over the Soviet Union. As part of the February 1962 agreement, Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student held in East Berlin on suspicion of being a spy, was also released.
October 11, 1963
Bettmann
The following year, the US released two alleged Soviet spies, Ivan Egorov and his wife Aleksandra, in exchange for two Americans imprisoned on espionage charges. The Americans released were student Marvin Makinen, who was arrested in Kyiv in 1961, and Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit missionary who was detained in the Soviet Union in 1941.
April 27, 1979
The Soviets released five dissidents, including Aleksandr Ginzburg, in exchange for two Russians convicted of spying on the US.
September 1986
Raphael GAILLARDE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
The US made the exchange to secure the release of American journalist Nicholas Daniloff, who was arrested in Moscow on espionage charges. His brief detention in a KGB prison is believed to be in retaliation for the arrest of accused Soviet spy Gennadi Zakharov. As part of the deal, Zakharov was allowed to plead no contest in court and was sent back to the Soviet Union, while jailed dissident leader Yuri Orlov was also released to the US.
July 9, 2010
US Marshals via AP
One of the largest prisoner exchanges between the US and Russia since the Cold War took place on the tarmac in Vienna, Austria. Washington handed over 10 Russian spies who had been living in the United States secretly for years until he was arrested in 2010 by the FBI. In exchange, it freed four of its own citizens in the West, including Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy jailed for passing secrets to British intelligence.
April 27, 2022
Dimitar DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
Marine veteran Trevor Reed was handed over to the US on a Turkish tarmac, almost three years after he was jailed during a drunken night out on charges of assaulting two police officers.
In return, the US released Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling.
December 9, 2022
US Army Photo by Miguel A. Negron
A month later, WNBA star Brittney Griner sold to a Russian arms dealer Viktor Boutnicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” at the airport in Abu Dhabi.
Griner was arrested earlier that year at a Moscow airport when a vape tube containing marijuana oil was found in his bag. He was sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges.
Arrested in 2008, Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the US for conspiring to sell weapons to people who intended to kill Americans.
August 1, 2024
US Government photo
Among the prisoners released in recent years, Whelan was the first person to be detained in Russia in 2018. He was convicted on espionage charges, which he and the US strongly dispute, and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.
Gershkovich has been in custody since March 2023, when he was arrested during a travel report. He is the first American journalist accused of espionage by Moscow since Daniloff in 1986. Last month, he was sentenced to prison. 16 years in prison in what the US called a “sham” trial.
Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, based in Prague, was arrested in June 2023 after visiting her mother in Russia. Authorities accused him of spreading false information about the Russian military and sentenced him to more than six years in prison in July.
Unlike Whelan and Gershkovich, the US never considered them wrongfully detained.
