ExclusivePart 2 | Untold Facts Behind Massive Prisoner Swap Among US & Russia

Hello all you freedom-loving people. Welcome to another episode of Front Page. I'm your host, Scott Cameron Goulet. Today we continue with the story of how the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War was accomplished. Last week we talked about how Russia often uses a variety of pretexts to capture U.S. citizens in exchange for key Russian figures who have been arrested and sentenced by the West. The Biden administration was willing to negotiate so a channel of communication was established between the two countries for prisoner exchanges. But the one Russian prisoner that Putin wanted most was in the hands of the German government. So how to get Germany interested in joining the effort was a tough task for the White House. Okay, let's get into it. President Putin had somewhat on his hands that the German government was very interested in rescuing the famous dissident Alexei Navalny. Krzysztof Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who is deeply involved in Russian affairs, offered a thought. He suggested the trade of Alexei Navalny for Putin's most wanted the murderer Vadim Krasikov and he suggested the trade of other Russian criminals for the Americans that Putin had in his possession. His recommendations were conveyed to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and to White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Sullivan contacted his Berlin counterpart Jens Plotner to discuss the feasibility of this option. Plotner warned that this was a complex issue. For the Germans, the release of one of Putin's professional killers would be an offensive precedent. German Chancellor Olaf Schultz has low polling approval ratings and his political coalition is fragile and Germany's economy is suffering from high inflation. So Schultz has a lot of headaches of his own to deal with. Would he be willing to add another one to the list? Nevertheless, Plotner relayed Washington's proposal to Schultz. In April of 2023, the same month that Krzysztof Grozev passed the proposal to the White House, Schultz discussed this very issue with his top aides in the Prime Minister's office. Schultz stated that releasing Krasikov for Navalny would be politically difficult but that he was personally open to it. Schultz admitted with Navalny at the time Navalny had just survived neurotoxicity and he was still learning to speak and walk. Schultz admired him and called him a very brave man. Schultz said that prisoner exchanges would be politically difficult because the German government is legally opposed to the idea of prisoner exchanges. As a political camouflage, Berlin needed to get the U.S. to submit a formal request for a prisoner exchange to Germany. Soon after, Wolfgang Schmidt, Schultz's chief of staff, met with a group of Wall Street Journal reporters and editors in his office and he conveyed to them the message, it may not be easy for us but it is possible. Meanwhile, Gershkovich's mother was actively thinking about how she could get her son freed. His mother Ella grew up in Leningrad which is now St. Petersburg at almost the same time as Vladimir Putin. Her mother was a Jew who worked as a wartime nurse in Poland helping to treat Holocaust survivors and her father who was a Soviet medic entered Berlin with the Soviet army in 1945. After her son's arrest, she and her husband Mikhail read all the information about the cases of former Marine Paul Whelan and basketball player Brittany Greiner. At the time, Whelan was still being held in a Russian prison and Greiner had been exchanged. Ella kept a record of the contact details of all those who might be able to help her. In her research, she also noted the name of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who was imprisoned in Germany. It struck her that Krasikov seemed to have a close relationship with Putin. This made her wonder, was Evan kidnapped in order to trade him back for Krasikov? Just as German Chancellor Olaf Schultz was discussing the possibility of a prisoner exchange with his staff, Ella received her son's first letter from a Russian prison. Gershkovich was being held in a pale yellow building on a boulevard on the outskirts of Moscow. This was a famous prison which tortured thousands of enemies of the state during the Stalinist era. He was kept in solitary confinement in a nine foot by 12 foot cell every day. This was to make him feel completely alone. The prison corridors are disturbingly quiet with only the occasional jingling of the guards keys and the sound of the cell door being opened and closed. Gershkovich was barred from meeting with U.S. embassy officials, but he was able to send and receive censored letters in order to keep in touch with the outside world. Friends wrote to cheer him up and they sent him things that he didn't have like dry food, coffee and sugar. Gershkovich was assigned one hour a day for his interrogation. This was the only time of the day when he was not in his cell. After a while the conversation between Krizniak, his interrogator, and Gershkovich would also involve soccer and literature. Gershkovich learned that Krizniak was a fan of the English Premier League club Liverpool. In his cell Gershkovich read the World War II epic Life and Fate by Soviet war correspondent Vasily Grossman and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Ella wrote weekly to her son. She told him the family history of the last few generations of their family through the Russian Civil War, World War II and the Soviet Union's anti-Semitism. She said now it's our turn. Last June Ella and her husband Mikhail traveled to Moscow for their son's appeal hearing. In the courtroom Ella saw her son pacing in a glass cage biting his lip. He was very nervous. The court camera captured a brief conversation between mother and son. The mother warned her son to be careful about what he writes in his letters and Evan gave his mother a smile with his head tilted. To prove her son's good character Ella agreed to be questioned. She was escorted to the office of her son's interrogator Krizniak. Krizniak had a rambling conversation with her for over four hours and he suddenly said that her son worked for the U.S. government and that he had been recruited as a spy in college. Ella categorically refuted. No he wasn't. At one point Ella was distracted by an odor that she hadn't smelled in about 40 years. The smell of cabbage soup. This was popular during the Soviet era. It required rationing to obtain. Krizniak confirmed her suspicion. It was indeed cabbage soup which was her son's lunch. When Ella came out of prison her husband Mikhail who was waiting for her outside said she had been in there so long he was worried she might have been arrested. Before boarding their flight from Moscow to the United States the couple was stopped by Russian customs officials. They were asked to surrender their passports. Then their Russian visas were cancelled. One official waved them off saying go back to New York. Six months later Vladimir Putin who had rarely given interviews since the start of the Russian-Ukraine war was finally willing to face the media in a year-end press conference. Hundreds of journalists waved their signs in the air hoping to get a chance to ask questions. One reporter from the New York Times managed to ask an unauthorized question. Why hasn't Evan been released? Putin responded that he didn't know about the journalist. Soon after Putin sent a cryptic message to the Biden administration. He said that we hope the two sides can find a solution. But the U.S. side had to listen to the Russian side and make appropriate decisions. But would the Russian side do the same for Washington? Both Berlin and Washington apparently understood Putin's subtext when Putin publicly stated that he wanted his killers back. But his German counterpart told Jake Sullivan that it was not yet time to put Krasnikov on the negotiating table. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock feared that releasing Krasnikov would invite Putin and other dictators to take more American hostages. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Baerbock at length and he convinced her. While Berlin and Washington were discussing how the prisoner swap deal would work, Moscow was preparing to receive an unexpected guest, prominent American journalist Tucker Carlson. Tucker told Putin's aides that he planned to ask for Evan Gershkovich's release on the spot during the interview and that if all went well he would use his plane to bring Evan directly home. An official who was close to Putin told Tucker that it would be a good idea and this might generate a positive response. Toward the end of the two-hour conversation with Putin, Tucker offered his thoughts on Gershkovich. He said that the guy is obviously not a spy, he's just a kid. Holding him hostage could demean Russia but Putin objected. And then for the first time Putin publicly specified that the candidate he wanted returned to Russia was someone who was serving a prison sentence with a U.S. ally. After the Tucker again brought up the subject of why Putin was reluctant to release Gershkovich. Tucker said that this would hurt Putin. Putin complained that the problem was in Washington. Putin said Russia had made its demands clear for the journalist's release. Putin lamented that the U.S. had not done more. On February 8th, Tucker's interview with Vladimir Putin was officially broadcast. It was viewed 200 million times that day. Politicians in Washington and Berlin were clearly feeling the pressure. The next day, Shultz flew to Washington. He went straight to the White House without a note-taker or an aide. Shultz was alone with Biden for up to an hour. At the end of the meeting, the leaders formally agreed that the two countries would explore a prisoner exchange agreement with Krasnikov as the centerpiece. The agreement would release numerous hostages and prisoners including Navalny, Gershkovich and the former Marine Paul Whelan. Russia would also get its spies back that were being held in Slovenia and Norway. On February 16th, government leaders, senior security advisors and intelligence chiefs from the United States and its NATO allies arrived at a Munich security conference. This is an annual gathering in Bavaria, Germany. FBI Director Christopher Wray was briefed on the upcoming prisoner swap deal. He met with Western intelligence chiefs. Just as the Western intelligence chiefs were starting a working luncheon, the phone on the table started ringing with the news that Navalny had died suddenly in the Polar Wolf prisoner of war camp in Siberia, Russia of unknown causes. Ella and Mikhail Gershkovich were on their way to Washington for a White House briefing on the status of their son's release when they saw a series of text messages. Navalny, the man at the center of the prisoner swap deal, had died. Ella was shocked but she couldn't let herself despair. At the White House meeting, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan kept his head down and he avoided eye contact with Ella. He carefully weighed every word explaining to Ella and Mikhail that the possibilities had not disappeared and that Germany had agreed to participate. The Biden administration was divided over whether and how to proceed with the deal and a quick return to the negotiating table could make the U.S. look too eager for a deal. In addition, the U.S. needed to give Germany some time. By May, the German Federal Intelligence Services opened its own track of negotiations with Russia. They introduced their own stipulation. If Krasikov was to be released, Berlin would want to exchange as many German political prisoners who were facing harsh sentences in Russia as possible. In June and July, U.S. intelligence officials met with their Russian counterparts in several Middle Eastern capitals and German negotiators held their own meetings. In Washington D.C., Sullivan was also busy trying to reach an agreement. At this time, a public controversy erupted within the U.S. Democrats who wanted Biden to end his re-election campaign. Biden hosted the July NATO summit in Washington D.C. Biden hoped that his spectacular performance would calm party concerns. At the NATO summit, Sullivan seized the opportunity to speak privately with European allies. The U.S. had asked these allies to release Russian spies. For the next 10 days, more things happened. On July 13th, the assassination attempt of President Trump captured the attention of the world's media. Subsequently, Biden was diagnosed as testing positive for COVID-19 on July 17th, and Biden returned to his home in Delaware for self-quarantine. At this point, Slovenia still needed to finalize the final legal arrangements for the repatriation of the detained Russian spies. And on July 21st, Biden called Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golub to move things along. Then about an hour later, Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race. The final prisoner exchange agreement was unprecedented in scale and complexity, and included Gershkovich and Krasikov, as well as two other Russian imprisoned journalists. It also included Russian political prisoners, four Germans, and Russian spies who were being held secretly in Slovenia, Norway, and Poland. CIA Director William Burns personally flew to Ankara in Turkey. This is where the prisoner exchange was to take place. He went there to discuss logistical issues with the Turkish intelligence chief. When Ella met with Sullivan again, Sullivan looked her in the eye, and she knew a prisoner exchange deal was imminent. When Russia suddenly accelerated her son's trial to three days, she understood even more. On July 19th, Ella saw the first photos of her son's conviction go viral. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but on August 1st at 10.30 a.m., Ella arrived at the White House for an emergency meeting with President Biden. This was the 491st day of her son's detention by Russia. Ella was told to bring her husband Mikhail and her daughter Danielle with her. The last instruction was very strict. Don't tell anyone. 5,000 miles away, Evan Gershkovich left a Russian prison, and he flew to a Turkish airport on a government airplane. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, different planes were transporting different people, creating a jigsaw puzzle of prisoner exchange. The West got who they wanted, and of course Putin got who he wanted. The killer Vadim Krasnikov was released by Germany, and two Russian spies were released by Slovenia. One Russian spy was released by Norway, and one by Poland, and three Russian criminals were released by the United States. Now that there are no more Russian spies in foreign prisons that Putin wants returned, it should be safer for athletes to travel to Russia. Okay, this is our show for today. Thank you so much for watching Front Page. Your support here really encourages us to continue to tell you the truth. Again, thank you for watching Front Page, and we will see you next time.