For a few seconds, no one even noticed that Evan Gershkovich had taken his first steps back on US soil as a free man.
All eyes were on Paul Whelan, the ex-marine who had spent more than 2,000 days in a Russian prison, mostly in obscurity as his family implored the White House to bring him home. Now Joe Biden was holding him by the elbow, while the vice-president, Kamala Harris, looked on.
But then Harris turned around and spotted Gershkovich, who threw his arms out as if to say: “Here I am!” She mimicked him in mock surprise. Then they hugged. It was a moment.
Soon, Gershkovich came over to his mother, Ella, who had lobbied presidents, chancellors and senior officials to assemble a complex and precarious prisoner swap that would release him from a Russian jail. He lifted her off the ground in a big bear hug. Another picture-perfect moment.
Finally, he strolled over to the more than 100 waiting journalists, ready to greet colleagues and field questions despite the fact he’d been released just that morning. Asked how it was to be free, he barely thought and said: “Not bad.”
He also spoke about his feelings boarding the bus with the other freed detainees on Thursday and said he was happy to see Russians on board as well.
“There’s one thing I would like to say. It was great to get on that bus today and see not just Americans and Germans but Russian political prisoners.
“I spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where everyone I sat with was a political prisoner. Nobody knows them publicly, they have various political beliefs, they are not all connected with Navalny supporters, who everyone knows about. I would potentially like to see if we could do something about them as well. I’d like to talk to people about that in the next weeks and months.”
Hundreds of journalists – some of them friends – came to the base to catch their first glimpse of the freed detainees who, combined, had spent nearly a decade in Russian captivity. They were among 16 American, Russian dissident and German prisoners freed by Russia, in exchange for eight Russians freed by the US, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland. Those returning to Russia included a number of undercover spies and a convicted Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) assassin whom Vladimir Putin had obsessively sought to free from German prison for years.
For the friends and colleagues watching, there was something heartening in how naturally Gershkovich behaved, how casual the whole performance was. There was a playfulness to it, a humour and nonchalance that was distinctly familiar to a time before he was arrested and became a household name in the US and around the world.
But there was also something deeply earnest in his response to the 491 days he had spent in Russian prison for espionage, a sense of purpose and gravity of the moment that befits the largest prisoner swap since the cold war.
He hugged like it mattered. He looked you in the eye as you spoke. And, when he discussed the plight of the political prisoners who remained behind in Russia, his eyes became misty. This was a issue that he seemed to have taken to heart.
In a mere hour in public at the airbase on Thursday, he hit all the right notes to put those around him at ease. It was vaguely political at moments, the quick back-and-forth with the press corps feeling almost like a brief campaign stop before getting back on the jet. But, as he adjusts to a celebrity thrust upon him, Gershkovich seemed oddly at ease, and at home.
• This article was amended on 2 August 2024 to correct the positions of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in a photograph.
