Putin's ominous message: 'We can kill people in broad daylight in EU, we'll take care of our people'
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00:00Thank you very much for being with us.
00:04Evan Gershkovich is heading home to the United States
00:07after a prisoner swap was agreed with Russia.
00:10He was sentenced to 16 years in prison
00:12by a Moscow court last month on spying charges,
00:15charges denied both by Gershkovich
00:18and his employer, The Wall Street Journal.
00:21U.S. President Joe Biden said he has spoken
00:23with the released prisoners and their families,
00:25and Vice President Kamala Harris
00:27is cutting short campaigning for the election
00:29to head to Washington to help welcome them back home.
00:32One of the Russians freed is Vadim Krasikov,
00:36a hitman held by Germany
00:38for killing a Chechen exile in Berlin in 2019.
00:42Emerald Maxwell with this report.
00:46Russian government planes land in Ankara
00:49amid a major prisoner swap
00:51between Russia and Belarus and the West.
00:54An exchange that includes
00:56American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich,
01:00whose unusually quick trial and conviction by Moscow
01:03on espionage charges last month
01:05hinted that a deal was in the works.
01:08As a rule, swaps can happen only after a conviction.
01:12But Moscow wasn't going to give up Gershkovich
01:15without getting something in return.
01:19The relevant services in the U.S. and Russia
01:22are in constant contact with one another.
01:25And, of course, they will decide only on a reciprocal basis.
01:30Russia's long been interested in getting back Vadim Krasikov,
01:34who was imprisoned in Germany
01:36for killing a former Chechen rebel commander in a Berlin park,
01:39apparently on Moscow's orders.
01:42Over the last few days,
01:44there had been signs that an exchange was imminent.
01:47Prisoners in Russia mysteriously being moved from their prisons
01:50and disappearing from view,
01:52including Paul Wellin, a former U.S. Marine
01:55who was detained on spying charges while visiting Moscow in 2018,
01:58and Vladimir Kara-Murtza, a Russian-British dissident,
02:02as well as several jailed Russian opposition figures,
02:06Ilya Yashin,
02:08veteran Russian human rights defender Oleg Orlov,
02:11artist Sasha Skochalenko,
02:14and two allies of the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
02:19Meanwhile, a number of high-profile Russian citizens held in U.S. prisons
02:23appear to have been removed from the American Federal Prisoner Database.
02:28And on Wednesday, a Slovenian court sentenced two Russians,
02:32seen here covering their faces, to prison time for espionage,
02:36but then immediately ordered their expulsion from the country.
02:40A move Slovenian media said was part of the wider exchange
02:43between Russia and the West,
02:45the biggest since the Cold War.
02:48A highly significant, wide-ranging operation
02:51and the jewel in the crown in many ways,
02:53Evan Gershkovich now heading back to the United States,
02:56The Wall Street Journal reporter,
02:58having been detained first in Russia in March last year.
03:02U.S. President Joe Biden spoke a little earlier.
03:07Made this possible was a feat of diplomacy and friendship.
03:11Friendship.
03:13Multiple countries helped get this done.
03:15They joined the difficult, complex negotiations at my request.
03:19And I personally thank them all again.
03:22So for anyone who questions whether allies matter,
03:25they do.
03:27They matter.
03:29Today is a powerful example of why it's vital to have friends in this world.
03:33Friendship and diplomacy are what matters, says Joe Biden.
03:37That's bringing in Fraser Jackson, Washington.
03:39Fraser, give us the story from the Washington angle.
03:42Friendship, diplomacy, says Biden.
03:44We also hear no money was exchanged at all.
03:49Yeah, no money, no sanctions.
03:51That is what has been confirmed by Jake Sullivan
03:53at the podium of the White House press briefing room
03:55just a few moments ago.
03:57This has been a long effort in diplomacy,
04:00months in the offing.
04:02That is what we've been hearing.
04:04And it is something that the Biden administration
04:06started even before they got into office.
04:09We are told that Joe Biden instructed his national security team
04:13to start looking into all of the Americans who were detained abroad
04:16whilst he was still in the transitional period of his presidency,
04:20before he actually took office.
04:22And over the time that he's been in office,
04:24he's managed to free 70 Americans from a variety of countries.
04:28But this, it must be said, is probably the jewel in the crown,
04:31as you indeed said.
04:33This has been the highest profile prisoner swap with the Russians
04:37since the Cold War.
04:39There are a total of 24 prisoners that have been moved,
04:4216 moving westwards, with eight going back to Russia.
04:46And it was a difficult job to get over the line.
04:50Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser,
04:52has been pushing this plan with the various members of the Allies
04:57that the United States has been using for this deal,
05:00and floated the idea to the German Chancellor Schultz a few months ago.
05:05And we are told, ultimately, it was quite a big ask
05:08to get Vadim Kashukov back from Germany
05:11because there was going to be such blowback.
05:13And indeed, we are hearing that that blowback is already beginning in Germany.
05:16The man accused, who's been convicted rather,
05:19of assassinating a Georgian national in a park in Berlin in 2019.
05:25So there was a bit of a political risk for Schultz to take
05:30to allow this man to be freed from Germany.
05:33But we are told that during a meeting between Joe Biden and Schultz
05:37in the White House in February,
05:39he said that he would do it and said, for you, I will do it.
05:42That was the quote that we are being given
05:44by senior administration officials.
05:46That wasn't the done deal, though.
05:48It was still a few more months before all the final pieces came into play.
05:52The final piece of the puzzle was a call
05:54that Joe Biden put into his Slovenian counterpart.
05:57And we are told that that took place just one hour
06:00before Joe Biden announced that he would no longer be seeking re-election
06:04for November's election.
06:06So we are told that it was at that point, on that Sunday,
06:10that that deal was basically signed between the Allies
06:14and it was just then a case of waiting to see
06:17if and when it would actually transpire.
06:19But confidence grew steadily
06:21until we started getting rumours about this a couple of days ago
06:25when we heard about those Russian prisoner transfers,
06:27people going missing within the Russian prison system.
06:30And then we started asking sources and figuring out
06:34whether this was a deal that was going to be available,
06:37going to be viable.
06:38And indeed, it seemed like it was.
06:40But of course, for operational reasons,
06:42a lot of it had to be kept under wraps
06:44until those Americans and Germans and Russian political prisoners
06:48were safely out of Russian custody
06:51and in the hands of the US and Germany.
06:54Kamala Harris heading back to assist in the welcoming back ceremony.
06:59Yes, she will be heading to Joint Base Andrews,
07:03the Air Force base just outside of DC,
07:06which is used to being used by the President
07:10as he often flies around the country for various engagements.
07:14But it's also where they are going to be welcomed back.
07:17Kamala Harris, we are also told,
07:19had a very key role in all of these negotiations.
07:22She was present in a lot of the discussions with Schultz
07:25and the other European allies who have been involved in this transfer,
07:29including Poland, Slovenia and Norway.
07:32So she has had a very active role.
07:34That is something that the White House has been made very evident.
07:39They also said, however, that the deal that was signed
07:43was classic Joe Biden.
07:45That was the words of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.
07:48He said that he gathered American allies to get Americans home
07:52from the grips of the opposition.
07:54So a real team effort, it's been touted as here at the White House.
07:58But there is a real mood of happiness and joy
08:01that has descended not only over the administration,
08:04but also over the press corps as well, as some of their own come home.
08:08Evan Gershkowitz heading back to the US.
08:10Fraser Jackson, thank you for that take from Washington, DC.
08:16Let's bring in Douglas Herbert,
08:17our international affairs commentator, for more on this.
08:19Why did the Gershkowitz case become the focal point of this?
08:24Well, namely, he was the first American journalist
08:27detained on trumped up espionage charges, spying charges,
08:31really since the height of the Cold War.
08:33So it's been decades and decades since we'd seen anything like it,
08:36even if we had seen the atmosphere in Russia,
08:38especially for press freedom, freedom of expression,
08:41really darkening in recent years amid a crackdown,
08:44a general crackdown against journalists and civil society,
08:46more broadly speaking.
08:48You know, Russian state media reported today
08:51that Vladimir Putin had signed a decree pardoning
08:55several of those released from Russian jails today,
08:58including Evan Gershkowitz.
08:59And there's a real arch irony in that mark,
09:02that Putin pardons Gershkowitz from the perspective of the West,
09:05from the perspective of his newspaper,
09:06from the perspective of the US government,
09:08from the perspective of many people across the world
09:10looking in from the outside on this case.
09:13This was a purely politically motivated case, baseless.
09:18Russia never produced any evidence for the charges
09:21that it had laid down against Gershkowitz,
09:25namely that he was assigned by the CIA,
09:28the Central Intelligence Agency,
09:30to gather secret information about a military factory
09:34in the Urals region where he had been reporting
09:36he was arrested in the Urals capital of Yekaterinburg
09:39in March 2023.
09:41They've called this all baseless and farcical.
09:44The White House had gone further,
09:45and a lot of people echoed this line,
09:47that the crime, if he was guilty of any crime,
09:50he was guilty of committing journalism
09:52because what he was essentially doing is what journalists do,
09:55talking to people, trying to get all sides of the story,
09:58asking for public records,
09:59trying to get access to as much information as he can.
10:02In today's Russia, from the perspective of
10:04even a lot of the state-run media,
10:06what Evan Gershkowitz was doing is essentially spying
10:10because journalism in the sense of investigative journalism
10:13simply is not allowed to exist there anymore.
10:16So it's a skewed worldview.
10:18They can say with a straight face-
10:20It just isn't a case of something being lost in translation, though, is it?
10:23There was a clear strategy behind what Putin did
10:25in arresting him and charging him.
10:27Absolutely. Let's put aside the fact that the Russians
10:29are calling him a spy because he was doing journalism.
10:33The strategy has been to essentially false imprisonment.
10:36What do I mean by that?
10:37Using American citizens, not just Americans but others,
10:39but in this case, Evan Gershkowitz, an American citizen,
10:43Russian background.
10:44His parents had moved to the U.S. when he was born in the U.S., though.
10:49Using American citizens as pawns in order for Russia
10:53to achieve its political objectives, its political ends.
10:56In this case, what are the political ends?
10:58Well, we saw it in the Brittany Griner case when she was detained.
11:01She was swapped.
11:02It was a one-on-one swap for one of the world's
11:04most notorious arms dealers, Victor Boat.
11:06In this case, this was a swap again.
11:09You could say that, yeah, they got a lot of extraction.
11:12They got a lot of concessions from the Kremlin.
11:14A lot of high-profile figures were released in this swap from Russian jails.
11:18But in return, Russia's getting back one of the world's most notorious
11:21serial hitmen, Vadim Krasikov.
11:25This is a man who even before he knocked off a Chechen
11:30in a central Berlin park had also been a high-level colonel
11:33in the FSB in Russia and had been allegedly involved in crimes there.
11:38So, yeah, basically he had become a high-profile case across the world,
11:43Evan, because it was seen as such a farcical and such an egregious
11:47abuse of the justice system for political purposes.
11:51Douglas Herbert, thank you very much indeed.
11:53Douglas Herbert, international affairs commentator.
11:56Great to see you, sir.
11:57We continue with our analysis of this story,
12:00this massive prison swap that has happened,
12:02described as huge from the White House perspective.
12:06And Evan Gershkov, it's very much the jewel in the crown of what has happened.
12:10The Wall Street reporter who was arrested by Russia in March of last year,
12:14held ever since and charged us last month with, convicted last month,
12:18of spying in a Russian court and sentenced to 16 years, as Doug was saying,
12:22today pardoned by Vladimir Putin and on his way now back to the United States
12:27as part of this prison swap.
12:28We're joined now by Melinda Herring, the Eurasia specialist
12:31at the Atlantic Council.
12:32Melinda, thanks for being with us.
12:33What does all this tell you, tell us about Russia right now?
12:38Hey, Mark.
12:39I think what it says is that Vladimir Putin really wanted this one gentleman freed
12:44and he was willing to make a big exchange for it.
12:47And I would contest your description of Evan Gershkov, which is the crown.
12:53Don't forget Vladimir Kara-Murza just won the Pulitzer Prize
12:56and also Karamasheva is also a fantastic journalist.
13:00I think there was a concentrated campaign behind Evan
13:03and that's why we all know his name.
13:05But these other journalists are very serious in their own right.
13:08But it says that Putin really, really wanted this deal.
13:12He'd been trying for months and it broke down when Alexei Navalny died.
13:16So Putin was intent on that and he did give a lot.
13:20I never thought he would allow Vladimir Kara-Murza to leave Russia.
13:24Melinda, it is always a pleasure to be corrected by you.
13:27Thank you for pointing that out and I completely agree with what you're saying.
13:30Alexei Navalny apparently was part of this negotiation,
13:35but tragically it didn't happen in time to save his life.
13:39That's right.
13:40So your reporters are spot on that this is a super complicated deal.
13:44It involves 24 people who've been freed.
13:47It involves more than six countries and the deal's been cooking for a long time.
13:52But the Germans wouldn't agree to release this notorious Chechen Georgian assassin
13:58who'd been in prison since 2019.
14:01So that was really the sticking point.
14:03And they couldn't get the Germans to agree and Navalny passed away.
14:07But we saw that President Biden really put his neck in
14:11and said that this is super important and he made the deal happen.
14:15It's a great day in Washington.
14:17It's a great day for these families.
14:19It's a great day for the children of Vladimir Kara-Murza.
14:22It's a great day for the children of Alsu Kermasheva.
14:26Her daughter just had President Biden sing happy birthday to her.
14:30I mean, can you imagine to have your mother freed
14:33and to have the President of the United States sing happy birthday to you on the same day?
14:37What a day.
14:38What a day indeed.
14:39Your smile says it all in many ways.
14:41And one can only imagine what the families of the prisoners
14:44and what the prisoners themselves are now thinking.
14:47On the Russian side of things, will those prisoners going back,
14:50especially the hitman that you've mentioned,
14:53those prisoners going back, will they just slip back into their various nefarious roles as before?
14:59So, Mark, that's a big question.
15:01What happens to these guys?
15:02And I think they'll be rewarded in the system.
15:05The hitman has had his documents changed before.
15:08He will be taken care of.
15:09I think the big message that Putin's persistence with this case in particular,
15:14it sends a message and it's a very ominous message.
15:17You can commit a crime in Berlin and we've got your back and we will get you out.
15:23So Putin is saying we've gotten punity,
15:26we can kill people in broad daylight in the European Union
15:30and we will take care of our people.
15:32It's a sinister message.
15:33It's one that gives me a lot of anxiety,
15:36but that's the big message that we see today.
15:39And from Putin's perspective, this is a major propaganda victory.
15:44Yeah, it is.
15:46He's been trying and trying for this for a while.
15:48I think, though, people are getting excited and saying,
15:51oh, my God, are Moscow and Washington going to reset relations in the remaining months of Biden's term?
15:57No way, Mark.
15:58It's not going to happen.
15:59The war in Ukraine is the big elephant in the room and neither side is going to cry uncle.
16:04So I expect relations to be tense, tense, tense.
16:08The only thing that caused this coincidence were Biden's interests and Putin's interests were overlapping.
16:15It was momentary.
16:16It was a marriage of convenience.
16:18Nothing more than that.
16:19Linda Haring, as always, thank you very much for joining us.
16:22We always appreciate your analysis.
16:24Thank you very much, Indima.
16:25Linda Haring there from the Atlantic Center's Eurasia Center.