Washington D.C. – PBS, August 27, 2024
A prisoner swap with Russia brought three Americans home earlier this month. Among them was Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was sentenced to six and a half years after the Russian government accused her of “spreading falsehoods” about the army. Kurmasheva and her husband, Pavel Butorin, joined Geoff Bennett to discuss her experience and how she’s adjusting to life back home.
Geoff Bennett:
Earlier this month, an extraordinary prisoner swap with Russia brought three Americans home. Among them was Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was sentenced to 6.5 years on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
That was Alsu holding her daughters and husband tight, a tearful, joyous reunion.
Today, she joins me here with her husband, Pavel Butorin.
Alsu and Pavel, welcome to the “News Hour.” Thank you so much for being here.
Pavel Butorin, Husband of Alsu Kurmasheva: Thank you for having us.
Alsu Kurmasheva, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
Thank you for having us.
Geoff Bennett:
Your homecoming, Alsu, that moment where you were embracing your loved ones after nearly a year being separated from them, what was that like?
Alsu Kurmasheva:
I have lived the happiest moments of my life. It was exactly as I was dreaming of for months and months when I was in prison.
I actually had the same dream, how I would be greeting them and hugging them, several times. So it was exactly the dream that was coming true.
Geoff Bennett:
How has this past month for you readjusting to freedom and reclaiming your life as you knew it?
Alsu Kurmasheva:
It’s been extraordinary.
My doors are finally open. After more than nine months of behind closed doors in a cell without a window, I finally see colors. I see trees. I see plants. I see people. I talk to them. I hug them. It’s been amazing. It’s been exhausting as I reveal so much the scale of the campaign which was going on, on my behalf, but positively exhausting.
I’m happy of that.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes, exhausting in the best way.
Alsu Kurmasheva:
Yes.
Geoff Bennett:
Pavel, your family is whole again. Your daughters, Bibi and Miriam, how are they doing? And how are you doing?
(Laughter)
Pavel Butorin:
Well, I’m finally a little bit more relaxed, after more than a year without Alsu, of which for more than nine months she was held in a Russian prison cell.
We are overjoyed to have Alsu back. This is going to be a process. She is adjusting to living in the free world again. We are helping her reprogram from a culture of fear and distrust to the free world, where she can publish and say whatever she wants.
She has the support of her family, of her friends and further of her colleagues.
Geoff Bennett:
When you were detained, Alsu, did you have any sense of the kind of advocacy work your husband was doing to secure your release?
Alsu Kurmasheva:
I only believed and hoped that something like that might be happening. But I clearly didn’t have a sense of the scale of the advocacy campaign.
And there is a long list I want to say thanks, and my — thankful forever to my colleagues at RFE. They were opening my doors here in D.C. And this is how we work together without me knowing what was happening, and, actually, all the efforts brought to a happy end.
And, of course, the tremendous support by the U.S. government and President Biden administration, but also members of Congress, from Republicans and Democrats. I just learned it recently after my release that the effort was bipartisan. There was a — there was a union. Everybody united to bring me home, as an American mother and American journalist, because that was clearly why I was detained and why I was arrested, for being an American journalist.
Geoff Bennett:
What did you experience while you were detained?
Alsu Kurmasheva:
It was days, endless days, meaningless days of constant humiliation and intimidation in small things.
I haven’t witnessed physical violence in the cell I was kept in, but this moral pressure and continuous humiliation was on the way. And people didn’t realize even that it’s not the life to live in. It’s overwhelmed fear of each other, of your own thoughts, of what you hear on TV.
The society has been put on the survival mode. That’s what I sensed.
