WSJ’s Gershkovich is being released

Russia is releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan as part of a major prisoner swap with the U.S., report Jennifer Jacobs and Cagan Koc of Bloomberg News.

Jacobs and Koc report, “Further details of the exchange weren’t immediately available. The US has been in extensive talks to achieve the release of Gershkovich and Whelan, who were designated as wrongly detained by the State Department.

“Putin said in June that Russian and US intelligence services were in contact and that President Joe Biden’s administration was taking energetic steps to secure Gershkovich’s release.

“Earlier this year, Russia claimed it was close to a deal for an exchange that would have included Gershkovich, Whelan and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, before the latter’s death in February in an Arctic penal colony. A Western official in the weeks after the death of Putin’s most prominent critic confirmed talks took place but denied an agreement was imminent.”

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