US reporter Gershkovich among 26 freed in Russia prisoner deal
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00:00Not a great deal so far. We know there's aeroplanes from seven countries, about an hour ago.
00:08It appears that there are seven countries involved in this exchange of prisoners
00:12and nationals from those seven countries are about to be exchanged.
00:17We don't have the details about who all of them are. We know that three are US citizens.
00:22Next is Evan Dershowitz, a U.S. national from Russia.
00:32David, I'm gonna interrupt because we're having a choppy connection with the audio. Apologies for
00:37that. We'll try to cross back over to you later. For more, let's go to Washington and
00:43correspondent Fraser Jackson. David was saying, I heard, if I understand correctly,
00:49three U.S. nationals among those involved in this 26-person prisoner swap.
00:58Yes, of course, these details still to be confirmed. The 26 number, slightly higher than
01:05what I've been having confirmed to be by my sources. So that is still to be determined.
01:11But yes, at least three Russian, sorry, three U.S. nationals believed to be among these people
01:18being exchanged. The top lines really of it are Paul Whelan and Evan Guskovich, that being
01:23confirmed just in the last short while by the Turkish presidency itself. Of course, these two
01:31prisoners have been two people that the U.S. has been trying to get back for some time. Paul
01:36Whelan has been in detention in Moscow, in Russia, rather, since 2018. He is a former U.S.
01:43Marine who was acting as the director of global security for a car firm based in Michigan when he
01:50was arrested on what the Kremlin says were espionage charges. Those are charges that he
01:56denies and the U.S. denies as well. But he's been in prison ever since 2018. And Evan Guskovich as
02:03well has also been in jail in Russia since 2023, a Wall Street Journal reporter who the Russians
02:12claim was taking information about a tank factory and giving that to the CIA. That, of course,
02:19also being denied by Evan, by also the Wall Street Journal and the United States as well.
02:26But this has been a key point in U.S. diplomacy for the last couple of years of the Biden
02:31administration. Biden, in the past, if you look at the hostages that were taken,
02:36the American citizens taken by Hamas, he has made it a point to make sure that all American
02:41hostages do come home. And that is something that also extends to Americans who have been
02:47wrongly imprisoned abroad as well. So, of course, this is a bit of a tit-for-tat game that the
02:52United States has been playing with Russia, not just over these three people that we are expecting
02:59to come back. I'm told there may also be another person included in that list as well. But also,
03:06if you look to the past as well, there have been exchanges, two exchanges in the last two years.
03:12The most high profile before this one was, of course, for Brittany Greiner, the
03:16basketball star who was exchanged for a Russian arms dealer. So that taking place in December
03:222022. So there is a history of this between the U.S. and Russia, despite obviously ongoing tensions
03:28mainly over the war in Ukraine. A statement posted online a short while ago,
03:33the Radio Free Europe stating that a journalist working for the broadcaster,
03:40Alzu Kurmasheva, would be released as part of the deal. That's another name to watch
03:47out for. I wanted to ask you on this, Fraser Jackson, any word on whether some of the other
03:54big names that had been mentioned, such as we talked about it at the outset,
04:03some prominent opposition figures in Russia could be in that mix?
04:12Yeah, it's possible. There are, of course, a lot of political prisoners that have been taken by
04:18the Russians over the course of the last couple of years. Of course, Alexei Navalny was arguably
04:24the biggest name on that list. But of course, he died whilst he was in prison. But there are
04:30various people who work for his company that have been detained by Russian authorities.
04:36And of course, there are some other high profile critics of the Kremlin as well. They've also
04:41been arrested by the Russians. I'm thinking of Vladimir Kozmara, who's also a Russian national,
04:50but is also a British national as well. He is somebody who has said has been poisoned
04:55by the Kremlin multiple times with the nerve agent Novichok. And he has been in detention
05:01since being taken from his house in Moscow just a couple of years ago. So there are some
05:07high profile names that we're going to be looking out for. Of course, we don't have
05:11the actual list of names of people who are going to be included in this prisoner exchange.
05:16But we'll get more details when it is made officially confirmed.