Speculation is growing that the largest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the Cold War is imminent, after multiple high-profile political prisoners disappeared from Russian prison cells.
Rumors of a large-scale prisoner exchange have swirled since July 28, after reports emerged that jailed critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, llya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, Sasha Skochilenko and Kevin Lik, were removed from prison and taken to an unknown location.
That list has since grown, and a lawyer for U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, a former Marine and computer security official who has been in jail in Russia since 2018, said she was unable to confirm the whereabouts of her client.
Russian investigative site Agentstvo reported on Thursday that a plane operated by Russia's Special Flight Squadron that was used in previous prisoner exchanges—including in December 2022 for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout and American Brittney Griner—took off from Moscow's Vnukovo Airport and was about to land in Russia's Kaliningrad province, an exclave situated between Poland and Lithuania.
Hopes remain high that a potential prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus, and the U.S., Germany, Slovenia and Britain, would include The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American citizen who was detained in Russia in March 2023. He was sentenced to 16 years for espionage by a Russian court in July. The U.S. has denounced the case as a sham and has repeatedly called for his release.
Russia may be preparing to release between 20 and 30 political prisoners and journalists in an exchange with the U.S. and Germany, independent Russian news outlet The Moscow Times reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source. This would make it the largest prisoner swap since the end the Cold War.
"I know of more people than those who have already been mentioned publicly," the source said. "My estimate is that Moscow will extradite about 20 to 30 people to the West."
The source said they understood Gershkovich was among those who could be freed.
Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment via email.
"It looks like we are on the verge of a very large-scale exchange with the Americans," Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and founder of R.Politik: Reality of Russian Politics, a political analysis firm, said on Telegram on July 30.
"Could this be a group exchange? Anything is possible. This has never happened in modern Russian history, but in Soviet history, yes," Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia's Presidential Council for Human Rights, said.
The Kremlin has declined to comment on the matter, telling reporters on Tuesday: "We don't comment on this topic."
The White House has also refused to comment. National security spokesman John Kirby told Puck News that the U.S. "wouldn't want to mess anything up to prevent there from being a positive result."
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