Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan will be released from prison as part of a major prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, according to reports.
Gershkovich — who covers Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union for the Journal — was arrested March 29 in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, about 800 miles east of Moscow. The Federal Security Service, Russia’s top domestic security agency and successor to the Soviet-era KGB, specifically accused Gershkovich of “acting on American orders to gather information about the activities of one of the companies in the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.”
Earlier this month, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony with maximum security.
Whelan, meanwhile, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges, which his family and the US government have said are fabricated. He was arrested during a trip to Moscow for the wedding of a former naval colleague and then imprisoned in the infamous Lefortovo prison.
In 2020, he was also sentenced to 16 years in prison.
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