2024 Ankara prisoner exchange
In response to rising geopolitical tensions with the West over the past decade, Russia has heightened its repression of both domestic dissent and perceived foreign influence, leading to the arrest and detention of U.S. citizens, many of whom are deemed by the U.S. government to have been "wrongfully detained".
[16] Trevor Reed, a U.S. Marine veteran arrested in Russia in 2019 allegedly for attacking a police officer, was released in April 2022 for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and aviation transport expert imprisoned in the U.S. for drug smuggling.
Less than a year after Reed's release, American basketball player Brittney Griner, who had been arrested in February 2022 for drug smuggling, was exchanged the following December for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
[19] The involvement of Belarus in the deal reflects Putin's foreign policy, seeing post-Soviet states as Russia's sphere of influence and opposing NATO enlargement there.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Scholz and Slovenian prime minister Robert Golob separately during the Munich Security Conference in February 2024 to privately discuss the negotiations.
[27] On 21 July, American president Joe Biden called Slovenian prime minister Robert Golob to secure the necessary pardons for two Russian spies held in the country that were to be exchanged as part of the swap.
[47] News of the exchange was broken by Bloomberg prior to the plane's landing in Turkey; this was criticized by other outlets because information provided by the White House to journalists was embargoed until the individuals were successfully released.
"[50] The family and supporters of Marc Fogel, a schoolteacher from Western Pennsylvania who has been in prison in Russia for three years for the same crime as Griner——bringing a small amount of medical marijuana into the country–—objected to him being left out of the swap.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre described the exchange as a difficult dilemma: "Normally, we want people who are arrested and suspected of crimes in our countries to be investigated and possibly brought to trial according to our principles of the rule of law.
[54] He also commented on the case of Mikhail Mikushin, a suspected GRU agent imprisoned in Norway: "This [the exchange] is in practice the closest one gets to an official confirmation that he is a Russian intelligence officer and not a Brazilian researcher, as he has originally claimed to be.
[55] The Kremlin press service stated that "the decision to sign [pardoning] decrees was made with the goal of returning Russian citizens who were detained and imprisoned in foreign countries."
It was noted that the Russian side is grateful to the leadership of all countries that assisted in the preparation of the exchange and is also thankful to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for pardoning Rico Krieger, who had been sentenced to death in Belarus.
[59] Freed as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and the West, the opposition figures, Andrei Pivovarov, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, had mixed feelings about the deal.
[65] The press service of the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that "from the very beginning of the negotiation process to the final moment of the exchanges, all security measures, logistical planning, and needs of the operation were managed by the National Intelligence Organization.
"[66] Reporters Without Borders stated that Gershkovich "should have never spent a single day in a Russian prison", and their director of campaigns Rebecca Vincent called his arrest "outrageous".
