The prisoner exchange with Russia

Spy in Norway against opposition politician - the full list of exchanged prisoners

In the prisoner exchange in Turkey that was completed at 6 p.m. Swedish time, ten people were handed over to Russia, three to the United States and 13 to Germany, Russian independent Meduza and Insider report.

Mikhail Mikushin, who was detained in Norway on suspicion of espionage, was sent to Russia. This is confirmed by sources for Aftenposten. Several convicted or suspected spies have reportedly been sent to Russia, including a couple convicted of espionage in Slovenia on Wednesday and their two children, according to multiple media reports. Germany has reportedly released the Russian torpedo Vadim Krasikov who was serving a sentence for the murder of a Chechen former commander.

In exchange, Russia reportedly released Russian regime critics Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin and Navalny associate Lilia Khanysheva, American journalist Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all sentenced to long prison terms.

Kevin Lik, a 19-year-old with German and Russian citizenship who was sentenced to six years in prison for treason, is also said to be among those released.

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Gershkovich's mother driving the prisoner exchange

At 10.30 this morning, Ella Milman was called to a meeting in the White House with US President Joe Biden. That's what the Wall Street Journal writes in a report about the game behind the prisoner exchange where her son, the newspaper's reporter Evan Gershkovich, has been pardoned from a Russian prison.

The mother, who grew up in the Soviet Union, has been driving the work behind the exchange, meeting with American and foreign politicians and assisting both the Wall Street Journal and the US government's massive negotiating team with information from Russian sources. She has personally pressured German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to give Putin what he wanted for her son: the doomed torpedo Vadim Krasikov.

Ella Milman has been writing letters to her son every week to help keep his spirits up, telling of their family's survival of the Russian Civil War, World War II, Russian anti-Semitism - and, she wrote to him, "now it's our turn."