As he was released from his Russian jail cell, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich had a dazzling parting shot for Vladimir Putin.
Prison regulations required him to write a letter to Putin requesting clemency as one last formality. He was happy to do so, relying on the past 16 months he had spent honing his Russian language skills in custody.
A journalist to the last moment of his confinement, he scribbled a cheeky proposal at the bottom of the form: would Putin be willing to sit down for an interview after his release?
Mr Gershkovich, 32, became a free man on Thursday as part of a historic prisoner swap in which eight Russian criminals were exchanged for a group of 16 comprising German nationals, Russian political prisoners and US citizens.
The breakthrough that secured the deal appears to have come in April 2024 when President Joe Biden made a phone call to Olaf Scholz, his German counterpart.
At that time Germany was working to release a group of citizens languishing in Russian prisons on dubious espionage and criminal charges.
Berlin also held the key to a deal for Mr Gershkovich: Vadim Krasikov, a notorious hitman whom Putin keenly wanted to free, was serving a life sentence in a German prison for gunning down a Chechen dissident in Tiergarten in Berlin.
Sources in the White House said the moment had come to bring Mr Scholz deeper into the negotiations – without his assent to release Krasikov, the deal risked collapsing.
During their call, the two leaders discussed an earlier written proposal which fleshed out the key details of a prisoner swap. It envisaged trading Mr Gershkovich, the ex-US marine Paul Whelan and some German citizens and Russian dissidents for Krasikov, plus some other notorious Russian prisoners.
“Basically, Chancellor Scholz responded to the President, saying ‘for you, I will do this’,” a US administration official said. “The president then turned to Jake [Sullivan, US national security adviser] and said ‘get it done’.”
The official added: “It became clear that the Russians would not agree to the release of these individuals without an exchange that included Vadim Krasikov, a Russian criminal who was in German custody. [He was] not someone we could offer ourselves.”
Another key figure was Mr Gershkovich’s mother, Ella, who tirelessly lobbied US officials for his release. She even confronted Mr Biden at the 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, imploring him: “You are the only one who can bring my boy home.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, she finally learned that a deal had been done on the 491st day of Mr Gershkovich’s detention, at a meeting in the White House with Mr Biden. “Tell no one,” she was warned.
A third important figure was Mr Biden’s chief hostage negotiator Roger Carstens, who goes by the nickname of “Captain America” due to his maverick tendencies, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The nations of Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey also played a role, according to Mr Biden, who hailed the prisoners’ release as a “feat of diplomacy”.
All those efforts led to what US officials called a “package of eight individuals of interest to Russia for the 16 individuals including German nationals, Russian political prisoners and US citizens” being agreed upon.
Prior to this, there had been serious bumps in the road during late 2023 and early 2024. At that time, US efforts had partly been focused on setting free Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, as part of the swap – but he was killed in a penal colony, plunging the negotiations into turmoil.
According to The Insider, an investigative news website, Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, had also felt deeply uncomfortable about releasing Krasikov, a notorious contract killer serving a life sentence for the Tiergarten murder.
Ms Baerbock reportedly felt that releasing Krasikov would signal weakness in Berlin, a view shared by some other figures in Germany’s coalition. However, they were all eventually brought around to support the deal by the autumn of 2023.
In April 2024 another breakthrough was secured, around the same time that Mr Biden made his phone call to Mr Scholz. Germany felt it needed Putin to offer much more than just US prisoners in order to fully justify the release of Krasikov, and suggested the idea that Moscow also set free a number of political prisoners of Russian nationality.
The BND, the German equivalent of MI6, was brought on to shepherd the deal through to its final stages. Putin’s replacement of Sergei Beseda, a top FSB official, with a new foreign relations chief, Alexei Komkov, may also have removed some outstanding hurdles.
Once the deal was done, Krasikov was among the Russian list of prisoners flown to Ankara, where Russian officials picked him up.
Turkish television footage captured the moment that both sides exchanged their hostages, passing each other as they crossed the tarmac.
Another video of the prisoners’ release showed a stoic Mr Gershkovich being led out of a prison bus by a masked Russian guard, who gripped his elbow.
On Thursday night, Mr Gershkovich was due to land back in America at Andrews Air Force Base, where his family was waiting to greet him.
Meanwhile, a group of Russian journalists and dissidents had also gathered at Berlin airport on Thursday evening, hoping to celebrate the former prisoners’ freedom.
As all the concerned families and friends waited for proof of their loved ones’ release, there was, at last, a flash of joy. A US government photo was released showing a beaming Mr Gershkovich holding an American flag, alongside Mr Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmashava: they were free.
The post Evan Gershkovich’s final request as a Russian detainee – an interview with Putin appeared first on The Telegraph.
