Kremlin Open To Talks Over Potential Prisoner Swap Involving Evan Gershkovich

The Kremlin said talks with the US about a prospective prisoner exchange — which would involve imprisoned Wall Street Journal writer Evan Gershkovich — must be kept out of public view.

When asked if the consular visits made on Monday to Vladimir Dunaev, a Russian citizen detained by the US on suspicion of cybercrime, and Mr. Gershkovich, a prisoner in Moscow since March on espionage charges, might signal a prisoner swap, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that Moscow and Washington are looking into the possibility.

“We have said that there have been certain contacts on the subject but we don’t want them to be discussed in public,” Mr Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

“They must be carried out and continue in complete silence.”

He claimed that “the lawful right to consular contacts must be ensured on both sides” but did not provide any other information.

Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Moscow, was permitted on Monday to pay Mr. Gershkovich her first visit since April. The US embassy did not immediately respond with any details.

While traveling to Russia for a journalistic assignment, Mr. Gershkovich, 31, was detained in the city of Yekaterinburg.

His detention alarmed reporters in Russia, where the authorities have not offered any proof to back up the espionage allegations.

Since the KGB detained Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for US News and World Report, in September 1986, Mr. Gershkovich is the first American journalist to be accused of espionage in Russia.

Twenty days later, Mr. Daniloff was freed in exchange for a Soviet Union UN employee who had also been detained by the FBI on suspicion of spying.

On US cybercrime accusations, Mr. Dunaev was extradited from South Korea and is currently being held in Ohio.

For the first time since his arrest in 2021, Russian diplomats were given consular access to him on Monday, according to Nadezhda Shumova, the chief of the Russian Embassy’s consular division, in remarks reported by the Tass news agency.