Quotes
From a human perspective, this deal was probably the only way for some political prisoners like Vladimir Kara-Mursa and Evan Gershkovich to escape alive from Russian hostage-taking,
CDU security expert Roderich Kiesewetter told DW This is not a confidence-building measure, nor does it raise hopes for a better relationship with Moscow or Minsk,
he told German news wire DPA International humanitarian law contains rules on the exchange of prisoners of war. In the current case, however, we are not dealing with prisoners of war and there are no fixed rules with which states must comply."
Asked about the legal basis on which Germany acted, Christian Mihr, deputy secretary general for Amnesty International in Germany, told DW It would have been quite out of the question to let him go, even if he had expressed an interest in doing so.”
The information he was so keen to impart concerned matters relating to the UK’s nuclear deterrent,
said an intelligence source When we heard that the deal is imminent, we hoped that someone from Belarus political prisoners will surely be a part of it. First of all, of course, the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner,
said Alena Masliukova, a member of Viasna - the human rights organisation founded by Bialiatski I know his character and I am sure there is no way he would ask for pardon from Lukashenko,
said Siarhei Sys, a long-time friend This was a total disappointment, and we still haven't overcome it,
said Masliukova, who now lives in exile in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital They are kept in cold cells, without contact with relatives. They leave jail with damaged health,
My friends and I are putting all our energy into making our country free and democratic,
It’s been 250 days and Evan is not here, and the effort to do whatever it takes hasn’t been done."
To jolt the U.S. government into being more aggressive in negotiations with Russia, she called out leaders last year on Fox News, saying Two days later, President Trump took a semiautomatic rifle shot to the ear, a quarter inch from his skull. Trump’s team had heard a deal was coming together. He had repeatedly said Putin would only free Gershkovich after he had won November’s election,
Through June and July U.S. intelligence officials met with their Russian counterparts in Middle Eastern capitals, while German negotiators held their own meetings. In Washington, Sullivan scrambled to sew up the deal just as an open insurrection erupted by Democrats hoping Biden would end his bid for a second term. Biden was hosting a July NATO summit, hoping a lively performance would quell doubts."
The Wall Street Journal described the scene Set in a pastel yellow complex off a leafy street on Moscow’s outskirts, Lefortovo was run by the FSB and designed to make its inmates feel entirely alone. Its sterile corridors were unnervingly quiet save for the echo of slamming cell doors and the jangling of guards’ keys,
the Wall Street Journal reported Biden called Prime Minister Robert Golob to nudge things along, adding wistfully: ‘I’ve really got to get to Slovenia.’ About an hour later, he announced he was leaving the presidential race."
Gershkovich was reading ‘Life and Fate,’ the World War II epic by Soviet war correspondent Vasily Grossman, and Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ followed by dozens of other books, which he and Khizhnyak discussed. He was determined to leave prison a better writer than he’d arrived,
Besides the obvious threats to one’s safety and the horrifying prospect of confinement, a situation like this is fraught with uncertainty,
Dr. Norman Blumenthal, director of the Ohel Zachter Family National Trauma Center in New York, told Fox News Digital I've also seen people have trouble focusing and making decisions in light of a trauma,
In the case of a severe trauma, such as being held prisoner and wrongly convicted, symptoms may not surface right away,
This varies from person to person based on prior history and the experiences encountered during captivity,
she told Fox News Digital