MOSCOW: Signs of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on the one hand and the United States, Germany, Slovenia and Britain on the other multiplied on Thursday, but there was no official confirmation of what could be the biggest exchange since the Cold War.
Fox News reported that jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovich was set to return to the United States later Thursday as part of a prisoner exchange.
Flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed that a special Russian government plane used for previous prisoner exchanges involving the United States and Russia had flown from Moscow to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania and Poland, before returning to the Russian capital.
Pervy Otdel (First Department), an association that specializes in the defense of people in Russian cases of treason and espionage, said the flight meant a prisoner exchange took place on the Polish border. Reuters could not confirm this.
Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, and Russian-British dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, both jailed in Russia, disappeared suddenly, their lawyers said a day earlier, after at least seven Russian dissidents were unexpectedly moved from their prisons. In recent days.
On Thursday, there were unconfirmed Russian media reports that another dissident, opposition activist Vadim Ostanin, had been removed from his Siberian prison and moved to Moscow.
Online Russian media outlet “Agenstvo” reported that at least six special Russian government planes have flown to and from areas where dissidents are held in recent days.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian man detained in the United States, on Wednesday declined to confirm his client's whereabouts to the state-run RIA news agency “until the exchange.” But the lawyer, Arkady Bukh, was quoted by the RIA as saying he had been told by lawyers representing the people imprisoned in Russia that they were “en route” to undisclosed locations.
RIA also reported that four Russians in prison in the United States had disappeared from the inmate database run by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. It named them Vinik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoschenok and Vladislav Klyushin.
The United States also holds at least two other Russian nationals, Vladimir Dunaev and Roman Seleznev, who have been convicted of serious cybercrimes, who may also be located.
The Kremlin declined to say whether an exchange was taking place, as did Russia's embassy in Washington, and there was no comment from Western countries. Such exchanges are usually shrouded in secrecy until they occur.
Dissidents inside Russia whose supporters say they were suddenly moved in recent days include opposition politician Ilya Yasin, human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Daniil Krinari, who were convicted of secretly collaborating with foreign governments.
Others who have suddenly disappeared into the prison system include Kevin Lick, a German-Russian citizen convicted of treason, opposition activists Lilia Chansheva and Senia Fadeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko.
Ivan Pavlov, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer now living in Prague who founded Pervy Otdel, said the disappearance of several people with a similar profile suggested authorities were rounding them up in Moscow for exchange.
He said President Vladimir Putin needed to pardon them before they could be exchanged, a necessary formality. The media outlet “Important Stories” drew attention to the fact that Putin, according to the government website, signed several secret orders on July 30 in which it could lead to prisoner amnesty.
In December 2022, Russia traded basketball star Brittany Griner, sentenced to nine years in prison for having vape cartridges containing hemp oil in her luggage, to arms dealer Victor Bout, serving a 25-year sentence in the US.
The largest post-Cold War prisoner exchange took place in 2010, with a total of 14 people.
The West sees the detainees as political prisoners
In the West, dissidents are seen as political prisoners wrongfully detained by the government and activists. All are designated by Moscow as dangerous extremists for various reasons.
Two journalists are also expected to participate in the exchange.
On July 19, Gershkovich was unusually quickly convicted of espionage charges which he denied. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and Russia has confirmed talks about his possible exchange.
Alsou Kurmsheva, a Russian-American journalist with US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also convicted in a secret trial the same day and sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian military. She denies wrongdoing.
Other US citizens jailed in Russia include Mark Fogel, a former school teacher convicted of possessing marijuana, which he said he used for medical reasons.
In Belarus, meanwhile, President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, on Tuesday pardoned Rico Krieger, a German, sentenced to death on terrorism charges, again with unusual haste and state media coverage.
Among those Moscow has signaled it wants is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian who is serving life in Germany after killing an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park.
A Slovenian court on Wednesday sentenced two Russians to time on charges of espionage and using fake identities, and said they would be deported, state news agency STA reported, with a Slovenian TV channel saying the move was part of a wider exchange.
Reuters could not independently confirm this.
