Alsu Kurmasheva on adjusting to life back home after release from Russian detention

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.

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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.

Geoff Bennett: You have three colleagues who are still being detained. What’s your message to them?

Alsu Kurmasheva: Well, my today’s celebrations are a bittersweet because of that. I can’t stop thinking about them, because I know what they and their families are going through right now.

I can sense it. And I want to tell them, you are in our thoughts and prayers, and we will do everything to release you and to bring that moment of you reuniting with your families.

Pavel Butorin: One of them is Vlad Yesypenko. He was detained in Russia-occupied Crimea.

And I have met his wife and his daughter. And no family should go through this. Journalists do not deserve to be detained or imprisoned. We know that he has done nothing wrong. We won’t stop our fight for his freedom.

Geoff Bennett: There are those who say, while it’s wonderful you’re home, that the U.S. can’t keep doing these deals where the U.S. exchanges terrorists and criminals for reporters and dissidents, that it only encourages the likes of Vladimir Putin and leads to more unjust detainments and despotic nations.

What do you say to that?

Pavel Butorin: Well, I’m perhaps the wrong person to ask, because all I wanted was to get Alsu back to her family.

I think, in this trade, the U.S. government and its allies showed that the free world places a higher value on human life, even if it means exchanging real criminals and spies for innocent Americans.

I know that it’s a complicated moral dilemma, but I think we in the free world need to have that moral courage to take these — to make these efforts.

Alsu Kurmasheva: And after the trade, I realized that the choice, the decision which was made by the Western governments and the United States government was a difficult one.

And I really appreciate that.

Geoff Bennett: You flew home with Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

Did you share stories? Did you talk? What was that like?

Alsu Kurmasheva: We did talk a lot. We shared stories. And, actually, Pavel said he really enjoyed listening to us.

Pavel Butorin: They picked up some prison jargon there, so — which was kind of interesting. But I had no idea about any of those words.

(Laughter)

Alsu Kurmasheva: Though we were all wrongfully detained and unjustly held in prison in Russia, our stories were very different.

Women prisons are very different in Russia. And we were all kept in different conditions. It was interesting to share those stories.

Pavel Butorin: What was important for us is to be able to somehow communicate with Alsu. Our communication was quite limited, but every opportunity we had, we tried to communicate to her that the world stood by her side, by our family.

And we knew that she was innocent.

Alsu Kurmasheva: And that kept me going always. Even when the darkest feelings and emotions took over sometimes, I knew the whole world was fighting for me. My colleagues and human rights organizations and journalists, everybody was fighting for me. And that kept me going.

Pavel Butorin: And the way we tried to keep her connected to the outside world was something — I think, at some point, we even snuck in the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs…

(Laughter)

Pavel Butorin: … to Alsu, so that she kept up with the culture.

(Laughter)

Alsu Kurmasheva: Yes, but the release of the new album was like — I was in prison already, so I hadn’t heard the songs, but I was kind of fantasizing how they might sound.

(Laughter)

Alsu Kurmasheva: And I heard them actually when I came home.

Geoff Bennett: Yes, yes.

Well, Pavel, now that you mentioned it, when you — you were on this program some weeks ago and spoke to my colleague Nick Schifrin and said that you and your daughter were supposed to be attending a Taylor Swift concert the night that Alsu came home.

Were you able to reschedule that concert? You get the tickets?

Pavel Butorin: Not yet. We’re working on it.

But, again, what were the odds?

(Laughter)

Pavel Butorin: This is something that we had planned for a year. I bought those tickets in July 2023, a year ahead of time.

Alsu Kurmasheva: Before I was arrested.

Pavel Butorin: Yes, before she was arrested.

So we were hoping — I had four tickets, actually, four VIP tickets. And Taylor Swift is not — thy just fans of Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is their world. It’s a world that gave them solace and comfort during those darkest times.

Alsu Kurmasheva: When I was away.

Pavel Butorin: And the girls made, I think, 70 friendship bracelets for this show. They played Taylor’s songs and their guitars every day.

They watched those livestreams of surprise songs from The Eras tour. Unfortunately, those dreams were shattered. And, well, it was a trade.

(Laughter)

Alsu Kurmasheva: Yes.

Pavel Butorin: But it was worth it, obviously.

Geoff Bennett: Yes.

Pavel Butorin: But we still — we’re not losing hope. We’re hoping to see Taylor this year.

Geoff Bennett: Well, we are so glad that this story has a happy ending.

Alsu Kurmasheva, Pavel Butorin, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

Pavel Butorin: Thank you.

Alsu Kurmasheva: Thank you very much.