Who are the 24 prisoners exchanged between Russia and the West?

Russia and several Western countries exchanged 24 prisoners on Thursday in an operation coordinated by Turkey.

According to Turkish authorities, 10 prisoners, including two minors, were transferred to Russia, 13 to Germany and three to the United States.

Among them are journalists, veteran political activists and ordinary opponents of the war in Ukraine. The youngest is 19, the oldest is 71.

Among the Russians detained in the West are suspected sleeper agents leading double lives. Others have been convicted of computer hacking. One was arrested for the daytime shooting of a man in a Berlin park.

They were freed on Thursday in the largest exchange of civilian prisoners between East and West since the Cold War.

Issued by Russia and Belarus.

– Evan Gershkovichthe reporter Wall Street Journalwas detained in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in March 2023. Without providing evidence, authorities accused him of “gathering classified information” for the CIA about a military equipment factory – a claim that Gershkovich, his employer and the US government have vehemently denied. In prison since then, a court in July found Gershkovich, 32, guilty of espionage after a closed trial and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.

– Paul Whelana Michigan corporate security executive, was arrested in 2018 in Moscow while attending a friend’s wedding. He was charged with espionage, convicted in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Whelan, 54, has denied the charges as fabricated.

– Also Kurmashevaa dual U.S.-Russian citizen, was arrested in 2023 in her hometown of Kazan, where she was visiting her ailing mother. The Prague-based publisher of the U.S.-government-funded Tatar-Bashkir service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was accused of failing to identify himself as a “foreign agent” and found guilty in July of spreading false information about the Russian military — charges denied by his family and his employer. Kurmasheva, 47, was sentenced to 6½ years in prison.

– Vladimir Kara-Murzaa Russian dual citizen and prominent opposition politician, was detained in 2022 after criticizing the war in Ukraine that began weeks earlier. In 2023, he was convicted of treason and other charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison, a trial he calls politically motivated. Kara-Murza, 42, a Washington Post columnist, won a Pulitzer Prize this year. He fell ill in 2015 and 2017 after two near-fatal poisonings that he blames on the Kremlin. His wife and lawyers say his health is deteriorating in prison because of the poisonings.

– Ilya Yashun — a prominent Kremlin critic who served eight and a half years in prison for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Yashin, a former Moscow City Council member, was one of the few prominent opposition activists to remain in Russia after the war.

– Andrey PivovarovThe 42-year-old led the opposition group Open Russia, which authorities banned in 2021. He was removed from a flight and detained that year. In 2022, he was found guilty of operating an “undesirable” organization and sentenced to four years in prison.

– Oleg Orlova veteran human rights activist, was convicted of discrediting the Russian military and sentenced to two and a half years in prison in February for his protests against the war in Ukraine. Orlov, 71, is co-president of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization Memorial.

– Sasha SkochilenkoThe 33-year-old man was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2023 for replacing several price tags in a supermarket with anti-war slogans.

– Ksenia Fadeeva, Liliya Chanysheva This Vadim Ostanin are former coordinators of the regional branches of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. They were detained after Navalny’s political network was outlawed in 2021 and were later convicted of extremism. Fadeeva, 32, and Ostanin, 47, were each sentenced to nine years in prison, while Chanysheva, 42, received nine and a half years in prison.

– Kevin LeakeThe 19-year-old, who holds dual Russian-German citizenship, was arrested in southern Russia in February 2023 and accused of taking photographs of a military unit and sending them to a “representative of a foreign state.” Court officials said he was against the war in Ukraine. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to four years in prison. Human rights activists said Lik, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, was the youngest person ever convicted of the crime.

– Rico KriegerA German medical worker was convicted of terrorism in Belarus in June and sentenced to death. He was pardoned on Tuesday by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

– Demuri Voroninwho holds dual Russian-German citizenship, is a political analyst who ran a consulting company that allegedly collaborated with journalists. He was arrested in 2021, convicted of treason in 2023, and sentenced to 13 years and three months in prison. He was implicated in the betrayal of Ivan Safronov, who allegedly passed him information about Russian military activities that Voronin later passed on to German intelligence.

– Patrick Shebela German citizen, was arrested in February 2024 at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg when he was allegedly found in possession of chewing gum containing the psychoactive component cannabis. He has since been detained on drug trafficking charges.

– Herman Moyzheswho holds dual Russian-German citizenship, is an immigration lawyer who helps Russians apply for residence permits in the European Union. He was arrested in St. Petersburg in May and allegedly charged with treason, but little is known about his case.

Liberated by the West

– Vadim Krasikov was convicted in 2021 of killing Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity, in a Berlin park. German judges concluded that it was a murder ordered by Russian secret services. Krasikov, 58, was sentenced to life in prison. Russian President Vladimir Putin this year proposed a possible exchange for Krasikov.

– Pavel Rubtsov was detained in Poland on charges of espionage. He is one of several people detained in Poland on charges of spying for Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

– Roman SeleznevThe son of a Russian lawmaker, Seleznev was convicted in the U.S. in 2017 of hacking more than 500 companies and stealing millions of credit card numbers, which he then sold on websites. Seleznev, a Russian citizen, was sentenced to 27 years in prison and paid nearly $170 million in restitution to his victims.

– Vladislav Klyushina wealthy businessman with ties to the Kremlin, was convicted in Boston in 2023 on charges that included wire fraud and securities fraud in a nearly $100 million scheme that relied on classified income information stolen through cyber-hacking in the United States. Klyushin, 43, who allegedly personally embezzled $33 million in the scheme, was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was detained in Switzerland and extradited to the United States in 2021.

– Vadim Konoshchenkoan alleged officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service, was extradited from Estonia to the United States last year on charges of smuggling ammunition and dual-use technology to help Moscow fight in Ukraine. U.S. prosecutors say he was arrested in 2022 while trying to return from Estonia to Russia with about three dozen types of semiconductors and electronic components.

– Artem Dultsev This Anna Dultsevaa Russian couple arrested on spying charges in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2022. They pleaded guilty on Wednesday and were sentenced to 19 months in prison, with time served. Posing as Argentine citizens, the couple had used Slovenia as a base since 2017 to travel to neighboring countries and relay Moscow’s orders to other Russian sleeper agents. They have two children.

– Mikhail Mikushin was arrested in Norway in 2022 on charges of espionage. Norway’s internal security agency PST reported that Mikushin entered the country posing as a Brazilian citizen. According to Norwegian investigators, Mikushin was in Norway under a false name, working for Russian intelligence.