How did the US and Russia achieve the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War?

On August 1st, the United States welcomed back three American citizens who had been held hostage by Russia. This marked the largest prisoner exchange between Western countries and Russia in more than 30 years since the end of the Cold War. A total of 24 prisoners and hostages were exchanged, involving not only the U.S. and Russia but also Germany, Slovenia, and five other countries. How were such large-scale prisoner exchanges negotiated?

One of the released American hostages was Evan Gershkovich, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal. Since Gershkovich was secretly arrested by Russia last year, The Wall Street Journal had been continuously tracking and reporting on efforts to secure his release.

According to The Wall Street Journal’s information, here are some lesser-known details about the negotiations behind the scenes of this large-scale prisoner exchange.

Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old New Jersey native, comes from a family of Jewish descent who fled the former Soviet Union. He worked as a chef before pursuing a career as a journalist. In 2017, he became a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Gershkovich’s reporting on the war challenged the Kremlin’s official narrative. Suspicious individuals began tracking him on the streets. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry continued to renew his press credentials and visa every three months.

While most international media reporters left Russia, another journalist from a different news agency in Moscow experienced a police raid at his apartment one night. The journalist turned off the apartment lights and remained still in the dark until the police left. In the following hours, with the help of a lawyer, the journalist quickly fled Russia. In hindsight, this incident should have been a warning signal for Gershkovich.

On March 29, 2023, Gershkovich arrived in Yekaterinburg, 900 miles east of Moscow. This was his second trip to Yekaterinburg in a month. He planned to interview a source there to understand how Russia was rapidly renovating tanks and transporting them to Ukraine. They planned to meet at the Bukowski Grill steakhouse on Lenin Avenue at 4 p.m.

After Gershkovich’s arrest, The Wall Street Journal had been investigating the hostage-taking events in Russia since early 2023. At that time, Gershkovich had urged his colleagues to investigate Russia’s strategy of shamelessly detaining American citizens with false allegations and using them as hostages for exchanges.

In the evening of March 29, Gershkovich’s phone remained switched off in Yekaterinburg. The publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Almar Latour, also learned about Gershkovich’s disappearance.

The Journal’s staff logged into video calls from New York, London, and Warsaw, contacting contacts in Yekaterinburg and Moscow. A Wall Street Journal reporter sent a text message to a security manager asking, “Do you have any contact with Evan?” It was 10:12 p.m. in Yekaterinburg and 1:12 p.m. in Washington, D.C.

Another reporter managed to contact Gershkovich’s appointment driver, who came to the address of his apartment where he had previously arrived to pick up Gershkovich. However, he found only dark windows and said, “Let’s hope for the best outcome.”

Another person made several phone calls to a local journalist hired by Gershkovich to arrange some interviews. The Russian journalist sounded drunk, speaking incoherently.

After being unable to contact Gershkovich in Moscow after midnight, The Wall Street Journal phoned federal government contacts and sent notes to the State Department and the White House. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised, “We will get him back.”

At the same time, The Wall Street Journal reached Gershkovich’s mother, Ella, at 6:16 p.m. in Washington, D.C