Gershkovich advocates for Russian dissidents in first comments after arriving in the U.S.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich chose to advocate for dissidents languishing in Russian prisons, in his first public comments on U.S. soil after he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange.

“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,” Gershkovich said in a brief conversation with Andrew Roth, a reporter for The Guardian, as he stepped off the plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

“I just spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where basically everyone I was sat with is a political prisoner,” he added.

Seven Russian citizens, including four who worked with the late opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, were among the the 24 people freed in Thursday’s major multinational prisoner exchange. They were jailed in their own country, and released into the West.

On the dissidents he’d met behind bars Gershkovich said no one knew them publicly, but they had various political beliefs. “They’re not all Navalny supporters,” he added.

“Today was a really touching moment ... but it would be good to see if we could potentially do something about them as well,” he said.

President Joe Biden called the deal a “feat of diplomacy and friendship.” It was cut among seven nations, involving 24 people, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens held in Russia, and eight Russians imprisoned in the U.S., Germany, Slovenia, Norway and Poland.

The exchange took place in Turkey, and a plane carrying Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, reporter Alsu Kurmashevaand Vladimir Kara-Murza, a legal permanent U.S. resident, touched down in Maryland at 11:38 p.m.

After greeting them, Biden directly addressed the Russian