FALCON POWERS – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan are expected to be a part of the swap, according to a senior administration official said.
Thursday’s swap comes after months of quiet and complicated negotiations between Moscow and Washington, which included US diplomats scouring the globe for offers to entice Russia to release the Americans.
Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg. He was found guilty of espionage by a Russian court on July 19 and sentenced to 16 years in prison in a trial that the US government, his newspaper and supporters have denounced as a sham.
Whelan – who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen – was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation.
