Russia freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as well as jailed Kremlin critics in the largest prisoner exchange with the West in decades, in return for a prized assassin sought by President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine wants a second leaders’ summit expected later this year to pave the way for the end of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said.
Ukraine has made a payment of about $200-million to holders of its GDP warrants, securities that weren’t part of a recent $20-billion eurobond restructuring agreement with private creditors, said the finance ministry.
Russia releases US reporter in major swap for Kremlin agents
Russia freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as well as jailed Kremlin critics in the largest prisoner exchange with the West in decades, in return for a prized assassin sought by President Vladimir Putin.
“Now, their brutal ordeal is over and they’re free,” US President Joe Biden said at a White House appearance with family members of some of the released prisoners. “The deal that made this possible was a feat of diplomacy and friendship.”
The swap, which took place on the airport tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, included two dozen people, 16 going to the West and eight being returned to Russia. Among them were other US citizens as well as Russians convicted of crimes and imprisoned in the US, Germany, Poland, Norway and Slovenia.
One of those was Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Chechen separatist in a Berlin park. German authorities had long resisted including him in any exchange because of the brazen nature of his crime, but Russian President Vladimir Putin had made his release a top priority.
In addition to Gershkovich, who was arrested in March last year while on a reporting assignment in Russia and later convicted of espionage — charges he and the Journal reject — Russia also let go former US Marine Paul Whelan, who was jailed in 2018 and later convicted on spying charges he denies. The US had categorised both men as unlawfully detained and had been seeking their release.
Russia also freed Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual Russian and US citizenship, who was convicted last month under the Kremlin’s strict wartime censorship laws.
Such prisoner swaps are one of the few remaining areas of diplomatic cooperation between the US and Russia after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine poisoned relations. US officials accuse the Kremlin of taking Americans hostage to win the release of Russian agents and others held in US prisons. Moscow denies that.
“Not since the Cold War has there been a similar number of individuals exchanged in this way, and there has never, so far as we know, been an exchange involving so many countries,” said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. “It’s the culmination of many rounds of complex, painstaking negotiations.”
US officials described the swap as a success of their long-running efforts to win the release of Americans unjustly held abroad. Moscow insisted on the release of Krasikov in exchange for Gershkovich and Kurmasheva, the US said.
“The German government did not take this decision lightly,” Steffen Hebestreit, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief spokesman, said on Thursday. “The state’s interest in enforcing the prison sentence of a convicted criminal was balanced against the freedom, physical wellbeing and — in some cases — ultimately the lives of innocent people imprisoned in Russia.”
The exchange represents a major victory for Putin, who’d repeatedly pressed for Krasikov’s release in the face of opposition from Germany. By freeing the killer, Putin, a former KGB officer, showed his security service agents and others working for the Kremlin abroad that he won’t abandon them and will do whatever is necessary to secure their return, even amid the greatest confrontation since the Cold War between Russia and the West over his invasion of Ukraine.
Putin demonstrated his commitment to get his agents out with the December 2022 release of the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the “merchant of death”, who’d been sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in US prison. The Biden administration freed him in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner who was given nine years by a Russian court after customs officials at a Moscow airport found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage in February that year.
The latest exchange, which Turkish officials said saw two minors sent back to Russia along with the adults, included the release to the West of a number of Russian opposition figures, who’ve faced an intensifying Kremlin crackdown in recent years. Earlier this year, the two sides were close to an agreement that would have seen the release of Alexey Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, but he died suddenly in prison before it could take place.
The swap included Kremlin critics Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, as well as Oleg Orlov, co-chairman of the Memorial human rights group that jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Russian authorities also released three other jailed dissidents, pro-democracy activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeyeva and artist Alexandra Skochilenko.
One American who wasn’t freed is Marc Fogel, a 63-year-old history teacher in Moscow who was sentenced to 14 years in 2022 after a Russian court convicted him of smuggling cannabis. He said he was carrying marijuana for medical purposes. US officials said efforts were continuing to secure his release.
In Thursday’s swap, Russia also released Kevin Lik, a dual German and Russian national, who was serving a four-year prison sentence for treason for an act he allegedly committed when he was 16. As part of the deal, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s closest ally, on Tuesday pardoned a German citizen, Rico Krieger, who’d been convicted and sentenced to death in June for “mercenary activity” on behalf of Ukraine.
The US released several Russians convicted on a variety of criminal charges. Among them was Vladislav Klyushin, a Kremlin-linked technology consultant serving a nine-year sentence for insider trading, Roman Seleznev, the son of a prominent Russian politician who was serving a 27-year sentence for cybercrime, and Vadim Konoshchenok, jailed on suspicion of violating US sanctions against sending military technologies to Russia. The US alleged Konoshchenok had ties to Russia’s Federal Security Service.
Polish authorities released Pavel Rubtsov, jailed on espionage charges, as part of the deal, while Norway let go of Mikhail Mikushin, an academic who was accused of spying.
In Slovenia, meanwhile, two Russians detained as spies in 2022 pleaded guilty at a closed trial in Ljubljana and were released as part of the deal.
Zelensky’s aide hopes next summit will help end fighting
Ukraine wants a second leaders’ summit expected later this year to pave the way for the end of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said.
Andriy Yermak has led Kyiv’s efforts to organise the meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement after the first gathering in Switzerland in June failed to win over key nations from the Global South.
Zelensky is pushing to convene the second summit before the US elections in November with Russia potentially present at the table. The efforts come as Ukraine and its Western allies fret about Donald Trump’s return as president amid growing fatigue and a lack of breakthroughs on the battlefield.
“The most important expectation for the second summit is for it to shape major prerequisites for stopping the hostilities,” Yermak told Bloomberg in an interview from his office in Kyiv on Wednesday. “We need to end this war as soon as possible to get a just peace.”
Yermak said the gathering would be held in a country from the so-called Global South, probably in the Middle East, in a show of the “world’s unity” amid Russia’s attempts to divide it.
The previous peace summit held in Switzerland last June was marred by Putin’s demand that Ukraine give up a significant chunk of its territory as a prerequisite for peace, which Ukraine has repeatedly rejected. Russia wasn’t invited to the meeting, while China declined to attend.
Although Ukraine attempted to focus on topics which could gain broader consensus, such as nuclear security and the return of abducted children, the summit also failed to gain the support of key nations such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
Ukraine made $200m payment to holders of GDP warrants
Ukraine has made a payment of about $200-million to holders of its GDP warrants, securities that weren’t part of a recent $20-billion eurobond restructuring agreement with private creditors, said the finance ministry said.
The payment comes after the finance ministry said in a statement in July that it intended to pay a consent fee in early August linked to $2.6-billion of outstanding warrants, as well as a deferred payment on the notes from 2021. It also said it would “commit to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of holders of the warrants in any prospective future liability management or other treatment proposal”.
The government opted to transfer the money to warrant-holders despite Zelensky signing into law on Wednesday a bill that allows Ukraine to defer payments on foreign debt. The finance ministry said the payment included a consent fee and interest of $130.1-million, and a deferred payment and interest from 2021 growth of $70.5-million.
The warrants have disbursements linked to Ukraine’s economic performance, providing creditors with payments if gross domestic product expansion exceeds certain levels. They were issued as a sweetener during a previous debt revamp in 2015, but were excluded from a recent $20-billion bond restructuring agreement in principle between holders of Ukraine’s international bonds and the government.
EU and Ukraine dismiss Hungary oil scare, saying transit is fine
The European Union rebuffed concerns from Hungary and Slovakia over a decision by Ukraine to sanction a major Russian oil company and rejected for now their request for urgent consultations over the security of crude supplies.
European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis notified Hungary and Slovakia on Thursday that a preliminary analysis showed sanctions Ukraine introduced on Russia’s Lukoil in June did not affect transit operations carried out by trading companies via the Druzhba pipeline as long as Lukoil isn’t the formal owner of the oil.
As the consignees of the oil, the traders involved in the transactions are considered by Ukraine to be the owners of the oil, according to two people familiar with the matter. One such company is Litasco, which is owned by Lukoil. Others are Tatneft-Europe, Blackford Corporation and Normeston Trading.
Litasco was not under Ukrainian sanctions, Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s deputy economy minister, told Bloomberg.
In July, scheduled deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia where Litasco was indicated as the consignee were cancelled by the Russian side, the people said.
Dombrovskis discussed the transit issue with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in a phone call on Thursday after Hungary and Slovakia rang alarm bells over the sanctions slapped by Kyiv on Lukoil. The two central European governments raised concerns over the security of supplies and called on the EU to help resolve the situation.
A commission spokesperson said the bloc’s analysis showed no immediate risk to the security of supply for the two countries and that the commission was now waiting for more details from Hungary and Slovakia.
Andriy Yermak, Zelsnsky’s chief of staff, said that Ukraine hasn’t taken any steps to block the transit of oil.
“Our partners need to know: Each dollar which Russia receives for gas and for oil, they contribute to the military machine, and of course for us it is important,” he said in a Bloomberg interview in Kyiv.
Two Moldovan civil servants detained for spying for Russia
Two Moldovan civil servants have been detained in Chisinau, the country’s capital, on charges of treason and conspiracy on behalf of a foreign state following raids on parliament, local prosecutors said in a statement.
Authorities were not naming the suspects, who were described as an employee of the secretariat of the Moldovan legislature and a member of the border police. Local media reported that they were allegedly passing information to Russia.
Chisinau is grappling with a massive wave of hybrid attacks and provocations by the Kremlin ahead of Moldova’s presidential elections and a referendum on accession to the European Union scheduled for 20 October.
According to Moldova’s pro-EU leaders, the moves are part of an effort to destabilise the country and prevent it from moving closer to the EU. The country began accession talks in June and President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Dorin Recean have said that the government wants to complete the process by 2030.
Wednesday’s raid in the parliament building targeted the office of Ion Creanga, the head of the legal department, Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu told reporters. Creanga had been a parliamentary employee since 1992 and was allegedly caught red-handed on Tuesday night providing information to a Russian agent, TV8 reported.
In a joint statement, officials from the intelligence service and prosecutor’s office said that one of the suspects has been charged with treason for allegedly collecting information “to be used to the detriment of Moldova’s interests” and delivering it to an employee at a foreign embassy.
The second official is suspected of plotting against Moldova for attempting to pass sensitive information to the same embassy employee in exchange for personal gain, the statement added.
Moldovan authorities on Thursday expelled an assistant military attache at the Russian Embassy in a move that Russian Ambassador to Chisinau Oleg Vasnetsov described as unfriendly. Moscow “will find appropriate responses”, he said.
The Russian Embassy in Moldova also denied any wrongdoing and said in a statement that “the insinuations are another manifestation of artificially fostered anti-Russian sentiments in Moldova”. DM