#ALSU KURMASHEVA

[ridenwithbiden]

PRESIDENT BIDEN BRINGS THEM HOME

PAUL WHELEN

AFTER 5 AND A HALF YEARS IN PUTIN'S RUSSIAN PRISONS

EVAN GERSHKOVICH NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER

ALSU KERMASHIVA 288 DAYS AS A POLITICAL PRISONER

PRESIDENT BIDEN'S LAPEL PIN OF AN AMERICAN FLAG

IN TIME FOR A LITTLE GIRLS 13TH BIRTHDAY WITH HER MOM

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S HISTORIC DIRECT DIPLOMACY

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

President Joe Biden isn’t accepting the idea that he’s a lame duck president. He continues to build on his already impressive record with actions and ideas to help the American people. He’s also setting up Kamala Harris for potential presidential success, which could end up being the most profound part of his legacy. The most recent incredible success from Biden and his team is securing the release of two Americans detained in Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post opinions contributor, are also being released as part of the deal. Gershkovich and Whelan had been convicted of bogus espionage charges by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime. Bringing them home was a promise Biden made in his Oval Office speech explaining his decision to end his reelection campaign.

[...]

At home, Biden is committed to seeing through his student loan debt relief plans. The administration sent out emails to borrowers Wednesday, letting them know that some—or in some cases, all—of their debt will be canceled this fall when his executive order is fully implemented, and explaining how they can benefit. That’s relief for about 30 million borrowers, according to the White House. “Despite attempts led by Republican elected officials to block our efforts, we won’t stop fighting to provide relief to student loan borrowers, fix the broken student loan system, and help borrowers get out from under the burden of student debt,” Biden said. 

Biden also developed a sweeping plan for combatting housing costs and out-of-control rent inflation. It’s an ambitious proposal, giving corporate landlords a choice: “either cap rent increases on existing units at 5% or risk losing current valuable federal tax breaks.” That last part would take Congress’s help. The action he can, and is, taking on his own is ordering agencies to inventory federal lands that can be repurposed “to build tens of thousands of affordable homes.”  Biden’s Department of Housing and Urban Development just announced $325 million in Choice Neighborhoods grants, which will be used to “build over 6,500 units of new housing, support small businesses, build childcare centers and new parks, and will be used to leverage more than $2.65 billion in additional public and private investments in these neighborhoods.” Choice Neighborhoods is a HUD initiative to revitalize struggling neighborhoods into mixed-income housing.  In another family-friendly action, Biden is fighting to keep airlines from price-gouging families. He’s proposing a ban on the extra fees airlines charge parents to sit with their children.

[...] Biden is also looking to future-proof against the potential dangers of AI technology with an order directing every federal agency and department that could be affected to create standards and regulations overseeing AI—that’s everything from health care to housing to national security. [...] The Biden administration is also galvanized to step up the fight against fentanyl, with Biden on Wednesday directing all related federal agencies to coordinate actions to stop the flow of the drug.

President Joe Biden is still fighting for Americans, even after he passed the torch to Kamala Harris. #JoeBiden

[haute-lifestyle-com]

President Biden announced the release of two illegally detained American citizens from Russia, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and two journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, in the largest multi-nation prisoner exchange since the Cold War

[filosofablogger]

A Happy Reunion Day For Many!!!

Three very special people landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where they were greeted by President Biden and Vice President Harris at 11:45 p.m. last night.  These were people who had been held in Russian prisons and were part of the historic prisoner swap involving seven nations negotiated this week.  They are Evan Gershkovich, 32, who had spent 16 months in a Russian prison; Alsu…

[ttpd-chair]

Anyone on tumblr able to help out with this?

[pebblegalaxy]

Celebrating Courageous Journalism: The Inspiring Stories of Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich

A Tribute to Courageous Journalism: Saluting Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich Introduction In the realm of journalism, where the pursuit of truth often intersects with danger, few moments are as profound as the release of detained journalists. On August 1, 2024, the world witnessed such a moment with the release of Alsu Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and 14 other individuals in a significant…

[russianprotesters]

⚡️Alsu Kurmasheva’s husband Pavel Butorin commented for the first time on his wife’s release “Over the past few months, I've learned to, you know, keep my emotions and expectations in check. Obviously we always hoped for the best. But even now I will believe it when I see her and when we hug her. You know, we were given some instructions [about her release]. And I saw the news reports, and for a while I even stayed away from the Internet. I didn't want to see any leaks, no unconfirmed reports. But when we received the invitation to the White House, I knew this was happening. And when we walked into the White House, when we saw the families of other Americans unjustly detained in Russia, we knew exactly what was happening. To be honest today felt like a dream, I mean the last nine months have felt like a dream. Right now we are overwhelmed with emotions, we are still trying to comprehend what actually happened to us today, to be in the White House, to hear Alsou's voice from the Oval Office, next to President Biden - it was something special. But it has been an incredibly difficult year for us, and I am glad that we have come to the end of this journey, and now we look forward to the opportunity to hug Alsou and help her reintegrate into the free world after so many months of unjust imprisonment in Russia. Today we witnessed a historic act of determination and compassion on the part of the US government and its allies, demonstrating that the free world puts human life and family above all else. Even if it means exchanging real criminals to save Americans illegally detained for more than nine months. Alsou was deprived of basic human dignity. She was subjected to deplorable prison conditions, denied phone calls with her children, denied consular visits as an American citizen, denied proper medical care, and was convicted in a secret trial of a crime she did not commit. She was kept in prison solely because she was an American and an American journalist. We know that Alsou did nothing wrong. The US government knows she is not a criminal and the world knows she has done nothing wrong. We are very pleased with this result. Throughout this entire ordeal, Alsou's daughters showed incredible courage. They became the best defenders of the “Freedom Alsou” movement. And Not only will Alsou find that they are taller, maybe taller than she is, but she will also see two younger women, more mature, who are more assertive about their rights to freedom of speech and expression as Americans. Largely thanks to them - our daughters - we were able to withstand this test. We can't wait to hug Alsou. It was a very emotional day, and I think it will become even more emotional when we actually see her,” said Pavel Butorin . @idelrealii

https://t.me/idelrealii/36763

[mylionheart2]

[robpegoraro]

Today's reminder that I have an easy lot in journalism

Speaking as a tech journalist, it's hard to think that I'm remotely in the same profession as war correspondents.

A visit Friday morning to the newspaper that temporarily blew up my career just over 13 years ago reminded me of how easy I’ve had it in this profession as measured on almost any relative scale. The event that the Washington Post hosted to mark World Press Freedom Day featured one journalist who spent 544 days incarcerated in Iran before being freed in a prisoner swap, columnist Jason Rezaian,…

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #29

July 26-August 2 2024

President Biden announced his plan to reform the Supreme Court and make sure no President is above the law. The conservative majority on the court ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" from any prosecution for "official acts" while he was President. In response President Biden is calling for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that Presidents aren't above the law and don't have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. In response to a wide ranging corruption scandal involving Justice Clarence Thomas, President Biden called on Congress to pass a legally binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The code would force Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political actions, and force them to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have conflicts of interest. President Biden also endorsed the idea of term limits for the Justices.

The Biden Administration sent out an email to everyone who has a federal student loan informing them of upcoming debt relief. The debt relief plan will bring the total number of a borrowers who've gotten relief from the Biden-Harris Administration to 30 million. The plan is due to be finalized this fall, and the Department of Education wanted to alert people early to allow them to be ready to quickly take advantage of it when it was in place and get relief as soon as possible.

President Biden announced that the federal government would step in and protect the pension of 600,000 Teamsters. Under the American Rescue Plan, passed by President Biden and the Democrats with no Republican votes, the government was empowered to bail out Union retirement funds which in recent years have faced devastating cut of up to 75% in some cases, leaving retired union workers in desperate situations. The Teamster union is just the latest in a number of such pension protections the President has done in office.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris oversaw the dramatic release of American hostages from Russia. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan held since 2018, Russian-American reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva convicted of criticizing the Russian Military, were all released from captivity and returned to the US at around midnight August 2nd. They were greeted on the tarmac by the President and Vice-President and their waiting families. The deal also secured the release of German medical worker Rico Krieger sentenced to death in Belarus, Russian-British opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, and 11 Russians convicted of opposing the war against Ukraine or being involved in Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption organization. Early drafts of the hostage deal were meant to include Navalny before his death in Russian custody early this year.

A new Biden Administration rule banning discrimination against LGBT students takes effect, but faces major Republican resistance. The new rule declares that Title IX protects Queer students from discrimination in public schools and any college that takes federal funds. The new rule also expands protections for victims of sexual misconduct and pregnant or parenting students. However Republican resistance means the rule can't take effect nation wide. Lawsuits from Republican controlled states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, means the new protections won't come into effect those states till the case is ruled on likely in a Supreme Court ruling. The Biden administration crafted these Title IX rules to reflect the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock case.

The Biden administration awarded $2 billion to black and minority farmers who were the victims of historic discrimination. Historically black farmers have been denied important loans from the USDA, or given smaller amounts than white farmers. This massive investment will grant 23,000 minority farmers between $10,000 and $500,000 each and a further 20,000 people who wanted to start farms by were improperly denied the loans they needed between $3,500-$6,000 to get started. Most payments went to farmers in Mississippi and Alabama.

The Biden Administration took an important step to stop the criminalization of poverty by changing child safety guidelines so that poverty alone isn't grounds for taking a child into foster care. Studies show that children able to stay with parents or other family have much better outcomes then those separated. Many states have already removed poverty from their guidelines when it comes to removing children from the home, and the HHS guidelines push the remaining states to do the same.

Vice-President Harris announced the Biden Administration's agreement to a plan by North Carolina to forgive the state's medical debt. The plan by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper would forgive the medical debt of 2 million people in the state. North Carolina has the 3rd highest rate of medical debt in the nation. Vice-President Harris applauded the plan, pointing out that the Biden Administration has forgiven $650 million dollars worth of medical debt so far with plans to forgive up to $7 billion by 2026. The Vice-President unveiled plans to exclude medical debt from credit scores and issued a call for states and local governments to forgive debt, like North Carolina is, last month.

The Department of Transportation put forward a new rule to bank junk fees for family air travel. The new rule forces airlines to seat parents next to their children, with no extra cost. Currently parents are forced to pay extra to assure they are seated next to their children, no matter what age, if they don't they run the risk of being separated on a long flight. Airlines would be required to seat children age 13 and under with their parent or accompanying adult at no extra charge.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it is giving $3.5 billion to combat homelessness. This represents the single largest one year investment in fighting homelessness in HUD's history. The money will be distributed by grants to local organizations and programs. HUD has a special focus on survivors of domestic violence, youth homeless, and people experiencing the unique challenges of homelessness in rural areas.

The Treasury Department announced that Pennsylvania and New Mexico would be joining the IRS' direct file program for 2025. The program was tested as a pilot in a number of states in 2024, saving 140,000 tax payers $5.6 million in filing charges and getting tax returns of $90 million. The program, paid for by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, will be available to all 50 states, but Republicans strong object. Pennsylvania and New Mexico join Oregon and New Jersey in being new states to join.

Bonus: President Biden with the families of the released hostages calling their loved ones on the plane out of Russia

[un-ionizetheradlab]

Russia just freed SIXTEEN political prisoners in a prisoner swap with the West!

Among the released political prisoners are:

Oleg Orlov, a longtime dissident and the co-chair of Memorial, an organization created in 1989 to chronicle the USSR's human rights abuses and educate Russians about the history of political repression;

Sasha Skochilenko, an LGBTQ artist who was imprisoned in April 2022 for replacing price tags at grocery stores with data about Russian destruction in Ukraine, deemed treasonous under Russia's "fake news" law;

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political dissident who was fundamental in bringing about the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian human rights abusers, and who was poisoned twice by the KGB in attempted assassinations before being sentenced to 25 years in prison for "treason";

Evan Gershkovich, a young American journalist who was arrested in Russia while reporting for the Wall Streeet Journal in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for "espionage";

Paul Whelan, American former Marine who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor for "espionage";

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the war in Ukraine;

Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition activist who headed the pro-democracy organization Open Russia before being imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony infamous for its torture of prisoners;

Ilya Yashin, a young opposition politician who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for publishing YouTube videos about the war in Ukraine; when Russian authorities "encouraged" him to leave the country, he chose instead to stay;

Lilia Chanysheva, opposition activist and regional coordinator of Navalny HQ; in her final speech before the Russian court, she tried in vain to appeal to the judge's sense of empathy: "If you put me in jail for 12 years, I will be too old to bear a child. Give me a chance to be a mother!";

Kevin Lik, a dual German-Russian citizen who was arrested as a minor for "photographing military sites" shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; he was the youngest person ever to be convicted of treason in Russia;

Rico Krieger, a German man sentenced to death in Belarus for supposedly planting explosives on a railroad track to help the Ukrainian army;

Dieter Voronin, a dual German-Russian citizen and political scientist who was arrested in 2021 in connection to a treason case involving Russian journalist Ivan Safronov;

Patrick Schobel, a German man arrested in February 2024 at the Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg when customs officers found cannabis gummies in his luggage, in a scenario very similar to that of Brittney Griner;

German Moyzhes, a dual German-Russian citizen and lawyer who was charged with treason for helping Russians obtain European residency permits;

Vadim Ostanin, opposition activist and Navalny associate arrested in 2021 for his work with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation;

Ksenia Fadeyeva, dissident and Navalny associate sentenced to 9 years in prison.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sebastian Murdock and Nina Golgowski at HuffPost:

Three imprisoned American citizens and one American green-card holder have been released by Russia as part of a massive prisoner exchange deal involving multiple countries, President Joe Biden confirmed Thursday. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza are among those on their way home, Biden said in a statement.

“All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia — including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over,” he said. The prisoner exchange, described as the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, took place at an airport in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday, and involved people from seven different countries, The New York Times reported. Biden credited U.S. allies — particularly Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey ― for their assistance in the negotiations, saying they are “a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon.” [...] In all, the U.S. and its allies returned eight Russian nationals as part of the deal, including individuals with suspected ties to Russian intelligence, the BBC reported. Russia’s prisoners were already en route to destinations outside the country, Bloomberg News reported Thursday morning, citing people familiar with the situation.

Russia frees four Americans, including Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, from prison.

This is part of a multi-country prisoner swap that also saw Russia release 5 Germans and free 7 political prisoners in their own nation.

This is a masterstroke from President Biden to secure the release of 4 Americans and help get this swap deal over the line.

See Also:

The Guardian: Russia frees Evan Gershkovich and others in biggest prisoner swap since cold war

[arizonaconservativegal]

In case you needed another reason to hate the IRS

[mariacallous]

Lame-duck periods are meant to be inconsequential, but on Thursday afternoon at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden got a chance to present one of the most important breakthroughs of his time in office. In what was the largest U.S.-Russia prisoner swap since the Cold War, involving at least seven countries over a period of months, a total of 24 people moved across borders as pawns in a game of global 3D chess.

Eight Russians are returning home in exchange for a combination of 16 Americans, Germans, and Russians. Within an hour of confirmation that U.S. prisoners were safely out of Russia, Biden assembled family members of the freed Americans at the White House and addressed a gathering of journalists. As he looked into the cameras, he no doubt knew that he was being closely watched by his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow, by millions of people around the world, and by history.

Even in his moment of triumph, Biden found a way to focus on the human reality of the moment. He singled out Miriam, the daughter of the released Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. It was one day until her 13th birthday, and Biden put an arm around Miriam, leading a chorus of the world’s most popular song. The joy was obviously precipitated by a major international development, but it was also the day a teenage girl would see her mother again after more than nine months in prison, convicted for the crime of writing about Russia’s army.

There’s a long list of prominent names involved in Thursday’s prisoner swap, including Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison under false claims of conducting espionage, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was in Russia for a friend’s wedding and accused, again, of espionage. There were German citizens and even Russians, including Oleg Orlov, a human rights defender and co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Memorial, in prison for speaking his mind about his country’s war in Ukraine.

Journalists, tourists, and activists went one way in the prisoner exchange; on the other side was Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service serving a life sentence in a German prison for a hit on a former Chechen fighter, conducted in broad daylight in Berlin. Others included a Russian citizen involved in international money laundering, a hacker, a credit card fraudster, and an actual spy.

The historic exchange instantly evokes imagery from the Cold War, when such transfers of prisoners were more common. But rather than the historical parallels, it is the contrasts drawn by Thursday’s events that will be remembered. There was Washington, fighting for the freedom of not only its own citizens but also Russians who dared to criticize their own government, and in stark relief there was Moscow, openly trading journalists for criminals and Nobel winners for fraudsters. The Kremlin has gleefully applauded knocks to U.S. soft power, from the misadventure of the Iraq War to the botched U.S. departure from Afghanistan in 2021, but the symbolism of the moment will have not been lost on Russian President Vladimir Putin: This exchange isn’t a great look for him. And even though Biden’s claims of a grand battle between democracies and autocracies are often criticized for being too black and white for the modern multipolar world, the lame-duck president now has a moment to mark his favorite reference in the history books.

It’s an election year in the United States, so contrasts will also be drawn around the alternate visions of Washington’s role in the world—currently being debated by surrogates for the Democratic and Republican campaigns. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has long argued for a more transactional approach to geopolitics. In such a world, there are two players—one is a winner, the other a loser. The Trump worldview prioritizes singular might over alliances; values don’t matter as much as the value of the hand of cards a player is clutching to their chest. Biden, while careful to focus on the humanity and history of the moment, couldn’t resist pointing out the difference: “For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do.” He was referring in particular to the role of Germany, which had reportedly been reluctant to give up Krasikov. Biden personally spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in January and February, arguing the importance of the prisoner exchange.

Speaking a short while later to reporters, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan built on his boss’s message as he detailed the roles played by Germany, Turkey, and others in the prisoner swap. “There is no more powerful example of the importance and power of allies,” he said. “This was vintage Joe Biden.”

Supporters of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are also pointing out her role, visiting the Munich Security Conference a few times as vice president and building relations with German and European leaders.

Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, was quick to offer an alternative view: “We have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house. That’s a good thing.”

And so the race for the White House rolls on, with both sides seeking to score points and spin their version of events. Thursday will be a historic study in contrasts—between Washington and Moscow and between rules and impunity. It will also be a moment that could play a part in an American referendum on Washington’s role in the world and whether the electorate favors the slow, painstaking diplomacy of Biden or the instant gratification and drama of Trump’s dealmaking.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Amazing what you can get done when you're not golfing everyday.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 02, 2024

“This is a very good afternoon,” President Joe Biden said today. “[A] very good afternoon.”

“Today, we’re bringing home Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir—three American citizens and one American green-card holder. 

“All four have been imprisoned unjustly in Russia…. Russian authorities arrested them, convicted them in show trials, and sentenced them to long prison terms with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever. None.” 

In a complicated prisoner swap involving the U.S., Russia, and at least seven other countries, Americans Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva and British-Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who openly opposed the invasion of Ukraine, came home from Russia. Four German citizens who had also been wrongfully detained—meaning they had not broken laws but were being held as political bargaining chips—were also part of the exchange, along with a fifth who was released from Belarus. 

Also in the swap were seven Russian citizens who had been detained as political prisoners, four of whom worked with Alexei Navalny, the political opposition leader who died in February in a Russian prison. They have left Russia and will make their way to other countries. It is extraordinary that the U.S. government managed to force Putin to release his own citizens, and Biden called it out. “It says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans who are unjustly held around the world,” he said. “It also says a lot about us that this deal includes the release of Russian political prisoners. They stood up for democracy and human rights. Their own leaders threw them in prison. The United States helped secure their release as well. That’s who we are in the United States.

“We stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice—not only for our own people but for others as well. And that’s why all Americans can take pride in what we’ve achieved today.” 

In exchange, Russian president Vladimir Putin got the prisoner he wanted most, hit man Vadim Krasikov, back from Germany. In addition, the U.S. released three Russians, Slovenia released two, and Norway and Poland each released one. All told, eight Russians went home. 

Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that “a group of brave journalists and democracy activists are being exchanged for a group of brutal spies.” The exchange included no money or sanctions relief. 

The U.S. had been calling for the freedom of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as part of the negotiations when he died abruptly in Russian custody in February 2024. His death briefly derailed the negotiations that had been going on since shortly after Biden took office. Even before he took office, he had asked his national security team to dig into all the cases of hostages being wrongfully detained, which they were inheriting from the previous administration. “I wanted to make sure we’d hit the ground running,” Biden said today, “and we did.” 

He noted that with today’s releases, his administration “has brought home over 70 Americans who were wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad, many since before I took office.” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later noted that the administration has reclaimed U.S. citizens from “Afghanistan, Burma, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda, and elsewhere.”

Asking Germany to release Krasikov was a big ask, but the government was willing to exchange him for Navalny. After Navalny’s death, it seemed likely the deal could not be revived. But Sullivan believed he saw a way forward, and Biden called German chancellor Olaf Scholz and asked him to continue to move forward. “For you, I will do this,” Scholz said. The president told Sullivan to get it done. In April President Biden sent a formal request to Scholz asking him to make the complicated swap that transpired today. When a reporter today asked Biden what Scholz had demanded in return, Biden answered: “Nothing.”

In his remarks today, Biden emphasized that the deal was “a feat of diplomacy and friendship—friendship. Multiple countries helped get this done. They joined difficult, complex negotiations at my request. And I personally thank them all again.  And I’ve thanked them personally, and I’ll thank them again.”

“This deal would not have been made possible without our allies Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey. They all stepped up, and they stood with us. They stood with us, and they made bold and brave decisions, released prisoners being held in their countries who were justifiably being held, and provided logistical support to get the Americans home. So, for anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter. 

“And today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world—friends you can trust, work with, and depend upon, especially on matters of great consequence and sensitivity like this. 

“Our alliances make our people safer.”  

Sullivan was clear about where specific praise was due. “Today’s exchange is a feat of diplomacy that honestly could only be achieved by a leader like Joe Biden,” he said at a press conference this afternoon.” He directed the team and was personally engaged in the diplomacy necessary. “There is no more singular or concrete demonstration that the alliances that the president has reinvigorated around the world matter to Americans—to the individual safety of Americans and to the collective security of Americans,” Sullivan said. “And honestly, guys, I can just say this was vintage Joe Biden, rallying…American allies to save American citizens and Russian freedom fighters and doing it with intricate statecraft, pulling his whole team together to drive this across the finish line.” 

Tearing up, Sullivan added, “Today…was a very good day.”

This deal was in the works during the weeks when the press was hounding the president and suggesting he was not fit to do the work of the office. In fact, a senior administration official briefing reporters this morning pointed out that on July 20, an hour before he announced to the nation that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, Biden “was on the phone with his Slovenian counterpart, urging them to make the final arrangements and to get this deal over the finish line.” 

This is the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The administration warned journalists that no one should think that there has been a breakthrough in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia or that tensions have eased. Putin’s continuing attacks on Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and our European partners, as well as his growing defense relationship with China, North Korea, and Iran, all mean that “you will not see a policy change from President Biden or the administration when it comes to standing up to Putin’s aggression as a result of this,” an official said. 

But the deal does suggest that Putin might be finding it in his own interest to look like he might be willing to negotiate on different issues going forward, a reflection of the damage the Ukraine war has inflicted on his own society. Russia has recently pulled its ships from the Sea of Azov, Russian mercenaries just suffered big losses in Mali, and today, Russian media reported that the country’s largest oil refinery was on fire. Putin might also be seeing that Trump’s path to the White House has gotten dramatically steeper in the past couple of weeks. 

Indeed, Putin’s decision to go ahead with the swap was a blow to Trump. Gershkovich was a Wall Street Journal reporter when he was taken into custody in March 2023, and the Wall Street Journal covered the negotiations in quite some depth today. Reporters Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw, Bojan Pancevski, and Aruna Viswanatha noted that Trump got wind that a deal was coming together and began to insist at his rallies and in interviews that Putin would free Gershkovich only for him.

Putin has proven Trump wrong. 

That did not, however, stop Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance from claiming that Trump deserved credit for the swap despite Trump’s insistence that Gershkovich would be released only after Trump was reelected. For his part, Trump didn’t express any joy at all in the deal, simply claiming that Biden got fleeced and saying “[o]ur ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us!”  

And from the Department of Poor Timing, MAGA representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina tweeted this morning: “Biden is MIA. Why is no one talking about it?”

At today’s White House announcement, a reporter noted that former president Trump “has said repeatedly that he could have gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange,” and asked President Biden: “What do you say to that?”

“Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” Biden answered.  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[beardedmrbean]

Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has been jailed for six-and-a-half years by a court in the central city of Kazan on a charge of spreading false information about the Russian army.

An editor for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) said the mother of two was arrested in Russia last October for failing to register as a foreign agent.

She was sentenced on Friday, court officials said, the same day that fellow US journalist Evan Gershkovich was jailed for 16 years for espionage.

Ms Kurmasheva denies any wrongdoing, and Stephen Capus, RFE/RL president and CEO, told the AP news agency that her conviction was "a mockery of justice".

"It’s beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family," Mr Capus added.

In a statement to the BBC, her husband Pavel Butorin said: "The girls and I know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home."

Speaking to journalists when her custody was extended in May, Ms Kurmasheva said she had not spoken to her two daughters since her arrest, adding that her health was deteriorating.

Ms Kurmasheva, who holds both US and Russian citizenship, works for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir service. The two languages are closely related and spoken by indigenous peoples in two central Russian regions.

Ms Kurmasheva's work frequently focused on issues facing the ethnic minorities of central Russia.

According to RFE/RL, Ms Kurmasheva, who lives in the Czech Republic, travelled to Kazan in late May last year for a family emergency. She was detained while waiting for her return flight and her Russian and American passports were confiscated.

In Russia it is illegal to fail to declare a US passport.

She was fined, then arrested months later on the "foreign agent" charge. In December, while in custody, she was hit with the more serious charge of spreading false information.

It is believed her conviction may be linked to a book she edited in 2022 entitled Saying No to War, containing interviews with and stories from Russians opposed to the invasion.

Independent Russian media organisations and press freedom watchdogs say repressive laws are routinely used by Russian authorities to harass journalists and stifle independent reporting.

The situation has worsened since the invasion of Ukraine, with the "false information" charge commonly used to stamp out criticism of the war.

The charge was rushed through Russia's rubber-stamp parliament shortly after 24 February 2024 - the day Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time it was "urgently needed because of the absolutely unprecedented information war waged against our country".

Russia has been accused of hoarding US citizens to use as bartering chips to secure the release of Kremlin allies imprisoned abroad.

Mr Gershkovich's sentencing on Friday raised speculation of a possible swap with Russian prisoners held in foreign jails.

The speed of his conviction led some observers to believe that an exchange was imminent.

According to Russian judicial practice, an exchange generally requires a verdict to be in place already.

But while a possible swap for Mr Gershkovich was mentioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson in February, Ms Kurmasheva's fate is less clear.