Russia has consented to release Wall Street Journal reported Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States, according to sources familiar with the situation, as reported by Bloomberg.
The two men, who were jailed in Russia on espionage charges are now en route to locations outside of Russia. As part of the deal, the US and its allies will release prisoners they are holding back to Russia, according to Bloomberg sources who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the information.
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How the West views detainees ?
In the West, governments and and activists view dissidents as wrongfully detained political prisoners. However, Moscow has labeled them as dangerous extremists for various reasons.
On July 19, Gershkovich was swiftly convicted on espionage charges, which he denies and, sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for U.S. funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also convicted on the same day in a secret trial. She was sentenced to 6.5 years for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army, a charge she denies.
Other U.S. nationals imprisoned in Russia include former school teacher Marc Fogel, who was convicted for possessing marijuana, which he claimed was for medical use.
In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, swiftly pardoned Rico Krieger on Tuesday, a German sentenced to death on terrorism charges, with significant state media coverage.
Among those Moscow has indicated it wants in exchange is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park.
In Slovenia, a court on Wednesday sentences two Russians to time served for espionage and using fake identities, and announced their deportation, as reported by the state news agency STA. A Slovenian TV channel suggested this move was part of the broader exchange.
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