The president and CEO of Radio Free Europe (RSE) Steven Kapus said on August 1 that RSE journalist Alsu Kurmasheva will be released, given the information about the mass exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West.
"We welcome the news of Alsu's release and are grateful to the US government and all who have worked tirelessly to end Russia's unfair treatment of her," he said.
On August 1, Russia, the United States of America (USA) and several other countries began a mass exchange of prisoners, and it is expected to be the largest exchange since the end of the Cold War, RSE editorial office writes in English.
As Kapus said, Alsu was targeted because she was an American journalist who was trying to take care of a family member inside Russia and that she did not deserve unfair treatment and forced separation from her subordinates and colleagues.
"The release of Alsu makes us even more determined to secure the freedom of three other RSE journalists, cruelly imprisoned in Belarus and Crimea under Russian occupation. We will not stop until all our unjustly detained journalists are safe at home. Journalism is not a crime," he pointed out.
In many cases, accusations against Americans, including those against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Geršković and RSE journalist Kurmaševa, have been dismissed by their employers and the US government as fabricated or politically motivated.
A Russian court sentenced Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military, following a secret trial, according to court documents and officials.
She was sentenced at the court in Kazan on July 19, the same day that the court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg sentenced Gershkovic to 16 years in prison for espionage in a case that the US called politically motivated.
Bloomberg, Sky News, CNN and other Western media cited sources who confirmed that an exchange was underway on August 1, following the disappearance of several political prisoners detained in Russia.
So far, there is no official confirmation of which prisoners are involved in the exchange.
This news comes after nine Russian activists and one American citizen were suddenly transferred from Russian prisons in recent days.
Also, several Russians who were in American prisons disappeared from prison databases.
This has fueled speculation that a major prisoner exchange involving Russia, the US and several European countries may be underway.
No government official in Washington, Moscow or elsewhere has commented on the possibility of an exchange.
But on August 1, analysts pointed to signs that the biggest prisoner exchange since the Cold War could take place.
"I have no comment on that yet," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on August 1.
The lawyers of several detainees who were in Russian prisons stated that the whereabouts of their clients is unknown, which is a common situation when prisoners are transferred.
Among them are, among others, opposition activists Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilja Jašin.
Olga Karlova, the lawyer of former US marine Paul Vilano, stated on July 31 that she does not know where her client is.
Authorities at the prison in Russia's Mordovia region, where he was held, ignored requests to confirm whether he was in the penitentiary.
Vilan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence on espionage charges, is one of more than a dozen American citizens currently in Russian prisons.
They were detained on various charges, from drug possession and theft, to treason and espionage.
Just hours after Vilan's disappearance was reported, a lawyer for Kara-Murza, a Russian-British citizen, said he was not allowed to enter the Omsk prison to see his client, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year on charges of treason. .
Airplane track
A group of Russian lawyers and human rights activists, known as Pervi Otdel, published a message on Telegram on August 1 in which they claimed to have recorded the flight path of the plane, which had previously been involved in other prisoner exchanges.
"The An-148 plane, which was allegedly used for the previous exchange of political prisoners, flew from Kaliningrad to Moscow (August 1)," Pervi Otdel announced. The plane, with the tail number RA-61727, then flew back to Moscow, the group said, noting that this "may indicate that an exchange of political prisoners took place at the border with Poland." Data from the flight tracking site "Flightradar24" confirmed the plane's movement, while the Russian media Agency reported that several special Russian government planes have been traveling to and from regions where dissidents are jailed in recent days.
Meanwhile, four Russians who were imprisoned in the US have disappeared from the inmate database maintained by the US Bureau of Prisons. They include Vladislav Klyushin, a Kremlin-linked IT entrepreneur serving a multi-year sentence on insider-trading charges, and Aleksandr Vinik, who recently pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges and has been free pending sentencing. The largest exchange of prisoners since the Cold War took place in 2010 and involved a total of 14 people.
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