- These prisoners were exchanged
In a prisoner exchange between Russia and Western states, numerous inmates have been released. The Kremlin confirmed that a total of 13 individuals were pardoned by President Vladimir Putin. The German Press Agency named the most well-known names:
"Tiergarten Murderer" Wadim K.
Wadim K. spent more than a year on the defendant's bench at the Berlin Regional Court. On December 15, 2021, the judges sentenced the Russian to life imprisonment for the murder of a Georgian in the Berlin park Kleiner Tiergarten on August 23, 2019. The court was convinced that the instigators of the murder were in Russia. The Georgian had been in the sights of the Russian Federation for a long time because he had led a militia against Russia for several years during the Second Chechen War. Later, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin publicly referred to the murder victim as a "bandit", "murderer", and "bloodthirsty person".
The Russian initially claimed through his lawyers that he was called Wadim S., 50 years old, and a civil engineer. A false identity, according to the judges. Wadim K. had traveled to Berlin as a tourist the day before the crime. The now 58-year-old accepted the verdict at the time without reaction. He waived his right to appeal. Later, the "Tiergarten Murderer" was repeatedly moved from one high-security prison to another for security reasons and was last imprisoned in Offenburg, Baden-Württemberg, according to dpa information.
Evan Gershkovich
The 32-year-old US reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced in a controversial trial to 16 years of strict camp imprisonment in mid-July, accused of alleged spying. The Russia correspondent of the US magazine "Wall Street Journal" was arrested by the Russian secret service FSB in Yekaterinburg at the Ural Mountains at the end of 2023 during a reporting trip. It was alleged that he had collected secret information about Russia's defense industry for US institutions. The "Wall Street Journal" denied this. Gershkovich was reportedly working on his job with an official accreditation.
The US government demanded the release of the journalist for months. Several US media withdrew their own correspondents from Moscow after his arrest, fearing political persecution of their employees by the Russian state. Observers in Moscow already interpreted the quick conviction of Gershkovich as a possible sign that an agreement with the US side could be imminent. In general, a verdict must be in place before an exchange can take place according to Russian legal practice.
Paul Whelan
The 54-year-old former US soldier Paul Whelan was sentenced by a Russian court in June 2020 to 16 years in a labor camp for alleged espionage. He had been in detention for about a year and a half before that. Whelan, who holds multiple citizenships, was allegedly caught red-handed by the FSB as a spy. He was said to have received secret data on a USB stick.
Whelan vehemently denied his innocence and spoke of a politically motivated verdict. According to the defense, he had assumed that the data carrier contained only private content. He was reportedly at a friend's wedding in Moscow when the FSB raid occurred. The US government repeatedly demanded the release of Whelan because no evidence was presented in the trial. There was also criticism of the detention conditions. Whelan had already fallen seriously ill in custody and had to undergo emergency surgery.
The 30-year-old German was sentenced to death at the end of June in Belarus (formerly Belarus). The charge: mercenarism and terrorism, allegedly Rico K., paramedic from Hildesheim, had been recruited by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service as a mercenary. As Belarus is the last country in Europe to carry out the death penalty, the concern was also great in the Foreign Office. Berlin criticized the handling of the man as "intolerable" after he was paraded on state television and confessed to his guilt. In the appearance, he asked ruler Alexander Lukashenko for clemency and the German government for help.
Lukashenko commuted the man's death sentence last Thursday after a meeting with investigators and the lawyer. The decision, presented as a humanitarian gesture, was also seen as a sign of an impending prisoner exchange. Belarus had itself announced that it had made an offer to the Foreign Office in Berlin for negotiations.
Vladimir Kara-Mursa
The 42-year-old belongs to the most prominent opposition figures in Russia. He was sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp in April 2023 on charges of high treason. The unprecedented ruling caused worldwide outrage. Recently, there have been growing concerns about the politician, who has been in poor health for a long time. His wife, Yevgeniya Kara-Mursa, repeatedly raised the alarm on social networks, especially when contact with her husband was completely cut off after he was transferred to a Siberian prison hospital.
Kara-Mursa's wife reminded that her husband suffers from a chronic illness after two poisoning attacks. According to his lawyer, Kara-Mursa was transferred to a cell with harsh conditions for initially planned six months in June. Such particularly cramped cells are frequently used by guards in the labor camp for political prisoners. Kara-Mursa is supported, among others, by Kremlin critic and former oil manager Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who himself was once freed from the labor camp through German mediation.
Ilya Yashin
The 41-year-old politician belongs to the sharpest critics of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. Yashin remained in Russia when many other Kremlin critics had already fled abroad. Because he condemned the Russian invasion of war against Ukraine and blamed the soldiers of his homeland for the massacre of civilians in Bucha near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, he was sentenced to eight and a half years in a labor camp in December 2022 for insulting the army.
"Putin is a war criminal, but I will remain behind bars," Yashin told the court. "Isn't that a strange situation?" He is also known for his political closeness to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a labor camp in the Arctic region in February, and to the former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, who was shot near the Kremlin.
Oleg Orlov
The 71-year-old belongs to the best-known human rights activists and bravest fighters for justice in Russia. The co-founder of the organization Memorial, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was also sentenced to two and a half years in a labor camp for criticizing Putin's war. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize, criticized the activist's conviction as politically motivated.
Orlow was himself often present at trials against dissenters as an observer. He gained a reputation as a critic of Russian judicial arbitrariness, particularly due to his highly valued civil courage. Despite the risk of imprisonment in Russia, he remained to continue fighting against political repression in the country. Memorial received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for documenting war crimes, human rights abuses, and abuse of power in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.
Alsu Kurmasheva
A Russian court sentenced American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in a penal colony just days ago for alleged false reporting on the army. The verdict was based on a book she published in November 2022 titled "No to War. 40 Stories of Russians Resisting the Invasion of Ukraine," according to the Russian opposition platform "meduza." Kurmasheva, who works for the Tatar program of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), had been in custody since October.
Other Russian Prisoners
Other Russian political prisoners were also released, including artist Alexandra Skotchenkova and former regional heads of the Kremlin opponent Navalny's offices, Lilija Chanysheva from Ufa and XeniaFadeyeva from Tomsk. Vadim Ostanin, a Navalny employee, was also released.
All are opponents of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and received long sentences. The West criticized the verdicts as judicial arbitrariness and demanded the release of the prisoners. Kevin L., the 19-year-old German-Russian who was sentenced to four years in prison for treason in December 2023, was also released.
In early July, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitri Muratov, who founded the now-banned Kremlin-critical newspaper "Novaya Gazeta," publicly called on Western states to help free imprisoned Kremlin opponents in a video message. Six of those released were on his list of 11 names, which also included theater director Yevgeniya Berkovich, dramaturg Svetlana Petrichuk, activist Igor Baryshnikov, local politician Alexey Gorinov, and pediatrician Nadezhda Buninova. Dozens of political prisoners remain in labor camps.
The Secret Service was involved in the case of Evan Gershkovich, the US reporter who was arrested in Russia and sentenced to 16 years of strict camp imprisonment for alleged spying. The Russian secret service FSB arrested Gershkovich at the end of 2023 during a reporting trip, and the US government demanded his release for months.
Despite several high-profile releases of political prisoners in Russia, The Secret Service continues to advocate for the release of other individuals like Vladimir Kara-Mursa, a prominent opposition figure sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp on charges of high treason.
