The Exchange Through Russian Eyes

Nadin Brzezinski
9 min readAug 1, 2024

We got excellent news this morning. My suspicions that an exchange was coming came true. I was surprised how fast it happened. Our media is going to concentrate on Americans who are coming home today. That’s understandable — one more detail. As you read this, realize the full exchange happened in Ankara despite rumors of multiple locations. This has been the latest to emerge. So, the news of borders with Poland is wrong, but the texts have not been corrected; there are just a few updates.

But we need the bigger picture. These two Volymedia pieces read like a Cold War spy novel. So do enjoy. We exchanged spies and assassins for reporters and human rights activists. Don’t travel to Russia. They will need more people for future exchanges. So here are the two pieces. Leaving them as if it was one. But here are the links to part one and part two:

The exchange took place. Part 1: who was changed and how

On the evening of July 31, Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan (an American Marine accused in the Russian Federation of spying for the United States), and, according to sources, Alsa Kurmasheva (Radio Liberty journalist, US citizen, who flew to the Russian Federation in May) were brought to Kaliningrad from Moscow 2023 for the funeral of her mother and arrested for “fakes”). On the morning of August 1, they were exchanged for several

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Nadin Brzezinski

Historian by training. Former day to day reporter. Sometimes a geek who enjoys a good miniatures game. You can find me at CounterSocial, Mastodon and rarely FB