MOSCOW: Signs of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on the one hand and the United States, Germany, Slovenia and Britain on the other increased on Thursday, but there was no official confirmation of what could be the biggest exchange since the Cold War.
Fox News reported that jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Hershkovich is to return to the U.S. as part of a prisoner exchange, possibly later Thursday.
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 revealed that a special Russian government plane used for a preliminary prisoner exchange involving the US and Russia left Moscow for the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania and Poland, before returning to the Russian capital.
The First Division association, which specializes in defending people in Russian cases of treason and espionage, said the flight could mean a prisoner exchange took place on the Polish border. Reuters could not confirm this.
Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both jailed in Russia, suddenly disappeared, their lawyers said a day earlier, after at least seven Russian dissidents were unexpectedly released from prison. . in recent days.
On Thursday, unconfirmed reports appeared in the Russian media that another dissident, opposition activist Vadim Ostanin, had been taken out of a Siberian prison and transferred to Moscow.
The Russian online publication “Agenstvo” reported that in recent days at least six special Russian government planes have flown to regions where prisons where dissidents are held are located.
Meanwhile, the lawyer of Russian Alexander Vinnik, who is in custody in the United States, refused on Wednesday to confirm the whereabouts of his client to the state agency RIA “until the exchange takes place.” But RIA quoted lawyer Arkady Bukh as saying that lawyers representing people imprisoned in Russia told him they were “on their way” to unknown locations.
The RIA also reported that four Russians imprisoned in the United States had disappeared from the inmate database maintained by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. The names of Vinnik, Maksim Marchanka, Vadim Kanashchanok and Vladyslav Klyushin are mentioned in it.
The U.S. also holds at least two other Russian nationals, Vladimir Dunaev and Roman Seleznev, who have been convicted of serious cyber crimes and may also appear.
The Kremlin declined to say whether an exchange was imminent, as did the Russian embassy in Washington, and there was no comment from Western countries. Such exchanges are generally shrouded in secrecy until they take place.
Among the dissidents in Russia whose supporters say they were told they had suddenly crossed over in recent days are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Daniil Krinary, who was convicted of collusion with foreign governments.
Among others who suddenly disappeared in the prison system, citizen of Germany and Russia Kevin Leek, convicted of high treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanyshava and Ksenia Fadzeeva, as well as anti-war artist Sasha Skachilenka.
Ivan Pavlov, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer who now lives in Prague and founded First Department, said the disappearance of large numbers of people with similar profiles suggests authorities are rounding them up, likely in Moscow, for exchange.
He said President Vladimir Putin would need to pardon them before they could be exchanged, a necessary formality. The publication “Vazhnye istorii” drew attention to the fact that Putin, according to the government website, signed a series of secret decrees on July 30, which he said could be a pardon for prisoners.
In December 2022, Russia exchanged basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years for having cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in the United States.
In 2010, the largest exchange of prisoners since the Cold War took place, in which 14 people participated.
THE WEST IS SEEN IN POLITICAL PRISONERS
In the West, governments and activists view dissidents as unjustly detained political prisoners. All of them, for various reasons, were recognized by Moscow as dangerous extremists.
Two journalists are also expected to be included in the exchange.
On July 19, Gershkovich was unusually quickly convicted on charges of espionage, which he denies. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and Russia has already confirmed talks about his possible exchange.
Alsou Kurmashava, a Russian-American journalist for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also convicted in a secret trial on the same day and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian military. She denies guilt.
Among other US citizens behind bars in Russia is former school teacher Mark Vogel, convicted of possession of marijuana, which he said he used for medical reasons.
Meanwhile, in Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, on Tuesday pardoned Rick Krieger, a German sentenced to death on terrorism charges, again with unusual haste and state media coverage.
Among those Moscow has made clear it wants is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Chechen-Georgian émigré dissident in a Berlin park.
A Slovenian court on Wednesday sentenced two Russians to life in prison for espionage and using fake IDs and said they would be deported, state news agency STA reported, a move that Slovenian television said was part of a wider exchange.
Reuters could not independently confirm this.
