Biden Leads Effort on Prisoner Swap
While most of us were watching athletes around the world compete in athletic competitions, a group of international negotiators were teaming up to pull off an Olympian diplomatic feat that has resulted in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned by Putin essentially for being a reporter, and recently sentenced to 16 years, is among those heading home. "Moscow also released former Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason-related charges. Russia also released a number of political dissidents. The sweeping deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, and came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of governments in the U.S., Russia and Germany, whose prisoner, Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, emerged as the linchpin to the arrangement."
+ Joe Biden was the captain of the diplomatic team, even making calls to move the process forward within hours of announcing his decision to drop out of the presidential race. WSJ (Gift Article) with some amazing background: "Evan Gershkovich’s mother, Ella, arrived for an urgent 10:30 a.m. meeting at the White House with President Biden, on Thursday, the 491st day of son’s detention. She had been told to bring her husband Mikhail and her daughter Danielle in a three-minute call that ended with a strict instruction: Tell no one." Putin Wanted His Hit Man Back. A Mother Wanted Her Journalist Son to Come Home. Before Gershkovich was freed, his captors "had another piece of writing they required from him, an official request for presidential clemency. The text, moreover, should be addressed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The pro forma printout included a long blank space the prison could fill out if desired, or simply, as expected, leave blank. In the formal high Russian he had honed over 16 months imprisonment, the Journal’s Russia correspondent filled the page. The last line submitted a proposal of his own: After his release, would Putin be willing to sit down for an interview?"
+ A reminder that Putin is trading innocent people he took hostage for criminals. But it's a good day for the innocents freed, the negotiators who worked tirelessly, international cooperation among allies, and American presidential candidates who have never glorified Putin or called the press "truly the enemy of the people."
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