Canadian-born Paul Whelan, U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich released in Russia prisoner swap, report says

Canadian-U.S. citizen Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich have been released from a Russian prison in an apparent prisoner swap, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. 

CBC News has not independently confirmed details of the report.

Whelan, 54, was arrested in 2018 and convicted of espionage two years later. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Whelan, born in Ottawa to British parents, resided in Michigan for more than two decades and served in the U.S. Marines prior to his arrest in Russia.

He is a U.S. national who also holds British and Irish passports, and his detention has spanned both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations.

Both Whelan and the U.S. government have denied that he is a spy.

Gershkovich was convicted of espionage on July 19 and sentenced to 16 years on charges that his employer and the U.S. have rejected as fabricated.

The conclusion of his swift and secretive trial in the country's highly politicized legal system perhaps cleared the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the U.S., and has been behind bars ever since. 

Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S.

Speculation has mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including the star​tling Gershkovich trial.

In recent days, several figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been moved from prison to unknown locations.

Whelan spoke with CBC News from prison in March, following the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a remote prison camp the previous month. 

In a surprise call to CBC News foreign correspondent Briar Stewart in London, from the maximum security prison where he was serving his sentence, Whelan expressed hope that a deal could be reached to secure his release.