Evan Gershkovich ’14 Released in Russian Prisoner Swap

"Today, three American citizens and one American green-card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally coming home," said US President Joe Biden in a statement issued by the White House.

Among those released alongside Gershkovich are fellow American Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned for more than five and a half years, and recently detained Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.

"We are deeply relieved and overjoyed to learn of Evan's release from wrongful detention in Russia, where he was doing his job as a journalist," said Bowdoin president Safa R. Zaki. "We are grateful to everyone who supported Evan during these last sixteen months, including his Bowdoin classmates and friends, other alumni, government officials, and his colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, who never lost sight of his ordeal and who advocated for his release from the moment he was detained. Our hearts are with Evan and his family as they reunite and celebrate his long overdue freedom."

Gershkovich, who was last month sentenced to sixteen years by a Russian court following a secret trial, was arrested while on assignment in the city of Yekaterinburg in March 2023 and charged with espionage, although no evidence to support this claim was ever released. The White House and The Wall Street Journal, among others, have consistently denied that Gershkovich was a US spy.

The deal that secured the freedom of Gershkovich and others was described by President Biden as a feat of diplomacy. "All told, we've negotiated the release of sixteen people from Russia-including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years… Today, their agony is over," he commented.

The Wall Street Journal described the deal as the "largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, in which [Gershkovich] and more than a dozen others jailed by the Kremlin were exchanged for Russians held in the US and Europe, including a convicted murderer."

In a letter published late Thursday morning, WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker described the occasion as a "joyous day" for Evan Gershkovich, his family, friends, and well-wishers. "And it is a joyous day for the relatives and friends of the other wrongfully detained Americans and German citizens who returned home and for the Russian political prisoners who were released to the West.

"That it was done in a trade for Russian operatives guilty of serious crimes was predictable as the only solution given President Putin's cynicism," added Tucker.