The Turkish capital hosted the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries since the Cold War as informed by international news agencies. The operation involved 24 prisoners from Western countries, including Poland, the Turkish news service Anatolia reported.
„Tonight, US President Joe Biden called President Andrzej Duda to thank him for Polish assistance in the release of American citizens unlawfully imprisoned in Russia,” the Polish President’s Office informed in a post on Platform X.
During the conversation, the presidents emphasised the alliance ties and the strategic partnership between Poland and the US.
President Biden posted a statement on X in which he thanked allies, including Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey for their help in exchanging political prisoners with Russia and praised their „bold, courageous decisions„.
The Turkish news agency confirmed that among those exchanged, are: US Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who was sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison for alleged espionage; former soldier Paul Whelan, also sentenced in Russia in 2020 to 16 years in prison for espionage; Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin, a former associate of former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who was killed in 2015.
On the Russian side, the list includes former FSB agent Vadim Krasikov, sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany in 2021 for the murder of a Chechen-Georgian dissident in Berlin’s Tiergarten on behalf of the Russian authorities. According to media reports the list contains names of Russian hackers and other cyber-criminals.
Interestingly one of the released on Russian demand is a Spanish journalist of Russian origin Pablo Gonzalez (Pavel Rubtsov), who was detained in Poland on suspicion of espionage in February 2022. Pablo Gonzalez was a freelance reporter covering abortion rights protests in Poland.
Commentators in Poland complain that despite the release of Rubtsov no Polish political prisoners were released by Russia or Belarus, especially naming Andrzej Poczobut, sentenced to 8 years in a penal colony by the Lukashenka regime.
“I would like to assure you that efforts to release other political prisoners, Belarusian political prisoners, including Andrzej Poczobut, are being proceeded in different ways,” said Radosław Sikorski, Polish Foreign Affairs Minister.
Photo: @KamilDziubka
Tomasz Modrzejewski
