1 August 2024 year
Russia exchanged prisoners with Western countries, handing over 16 and returning eight. It was the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War.
Three days earlier, political prisoners began disappearing from Russian prison colonies: by the morning of July 31, the media had already counted ten people missing.
By 15 p.m. on August 1, it became known that the Americans imprisoned in Russia Evan Gershkovitch и Paul Whelan are being sent abroad, and that they were exchanged for Russians arrested in the West.
An hour later, it became known that Russian political prisoners would also be exchanged. The transfer took place at 7:00 PM Moscow time. Ankara (Türkiye). At the same time, Russian political prisoners who had disappeared from prison colonies and pretrial detention centers began calling their families and saying that they were preparing to fly to Germany.
After 20 p.m., a press release appeared on the Kremlin website stating that Vladimir Putin had signed a decree pardoning 13 people: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Lilia Chanysheva, Oleg Orlov, Alsu Kurmasheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Vadim Ostanin, Evan Gershkovich, Demuri Voronin, Paul Whelan, Andrey Pivovarov, Alexandra Skochilenko и Kevin Lik.
The names of two more exchanged persons are German citizens. Patrick Schöbel и Herman Moyzhes — were not mentioned (by that time they had not yet been convicted), but a German citizen Rico Krieger It was not Putin who pardoned, but Lukashenko.
A plane carrying 13 Russian prisoners landed in Cologne On the night of August 1-2, several people (Fadeeva, Yashin, Orlov, Kara-Murza) stated that they did not consent to the exchange and did not submit a petition for pardon—they were expelled from Russia in violation of the Constitution.
The FSB special forces simply loaded us onto a bus and then onto a special plane
(Ksenia Fadeeva)
I don’t consider what happened to me on the first of the month as an exchange; I consider this event precisely as an illegal expulsion from Russia against my will.
(Ilya Yashin)
Russia has repatriated eight of its citizens from Germany, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, and the United States. Artem и Anna Dultseva (a married couple convicted of espionage in Slovenia, they arrived with their two children), as well as six more spies and murderers: Vadim Krasikov, Mikhail Mikushin, Pavel Rubtsov, Roman Seleznev, Vadim Klyushin, Vadim Konoshchenko.
Murderers and other criminals convicted by fair trials are now being released in exchange for people who simply exercised their right to freedom of expression.
(international human rights organization Amnesty International)
Negotiations lasted for several years. In early 2022, the key figures in the exchange, as proposed by the Bellingcat investigator, were Hristo Grozev, could have become Vadim Krasikov (he really did become one) and Alexey Navalny.
Following Alexei Navalny's death in prison in February 2024, the West lost interest in negotiations.
The final list was compiled by the United States and Germany. The chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation also claims credit for its authorship. Maria Pevchikh.