MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It's been more than three weeks since the U.S. and Russia completed the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: This is an incredible relief for all the family members gathered here. It's a relief to the friends and colleagues all across the country who've been praying for this day for a long time.
KELLY: President Biden speaking there from the State Dining Room on August 1 as news broke that three American citizens and one permanent resident were headed home. Well, Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was one of them. As their families all gathered at the White House in relief and celebration, Biden led a chorus of "Happy Birthday" for Kurmasheva's daughter, who was turning 13.
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BIDEN: (Singing) Happy birthday to you.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Miriam.
KELLY: Kurmasheva is back in Washington today to receive an award from the National Press Club, and she and her husband, Pavel Butorin, have stopped by our studios to tell us some of their story. Welcome to you both. And, Alsu, welcome home.
ALSU KURMASHEVA: Thank you, Mary Louise, very much. Thank you - happy to be home.
PAVEL BUTORIN: Thanks for having us.
KELLY: Yeah. I want to fill people in on a little bit of your story. I know it's complex. I know it had a lot of twists and turns. But you are a journalist for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. You had traveled back to Russia to help care for your mom. That was spring of last year. You were arrested last October. So that's - what? - more than nine months detained in Russia. Does it feel real that you're here, that you're out? Do you feel safe?
KURMASHEVA: As I see more people and I hug more people and kiss them and I talk to them, it feels more and more real. I'm so happy to be here in your studios, Mary Louise, and so happy to talk, so happy to tell my story.
KELLY: I keep thinking of the little details and what that must be like, like your first night back home in your own bed. How good was that?
KURMASHEVA: That was one of my biggest dreams - my first shower at home and my first night in bed. It felt incredible. I slept like a baby for a couple of nights, and then I started waking up, sometimes in a nightmare of living again what was happening to me.
KELLY: Yeah. Pavel, for you, I mean, it was this month - it was the first day of August that you got to see her after so many months. And you had been involved with trying to lobby for her release, traveling back and forth to Washington and talk to people.
BUTORIN: Yeah. It became my day job, really - you know, advocacy for Alsu but also taking care of my girls, you know, just making sure that our family went on living and, you know, somehow operating despite this distress of having Alsu imprisoned in Russia.
KELLY: Alsu, take me back to the moment - again, I know there were a number of twists and turns. You were detained. You were fined. You were detained again. Was there a specific moment when it became clear to you, things are going very wrong; I am not free to leave Russia, and I don't know when or if I will be?
KURMASHEVA: It was last winter when my - I was losing my hope. And those feelings of despair were taking over. It was a very cold winter.
KELLY: Where were you?
KURMASHEVA: In Kazan in Tatarstan. My captors kept saying that nobody wants you back there. Negotiations are not going on. They haven't even started. And you will end up here with a long sentence. I remember my thoughts those days. My cellmate and I were talking about how it might feel freezing to death, and she said that she read somewhere that it's not that painful. I just thought that - how it might feel if they really sent me to a prison camp for years and years. And then I made a plan that it's not going to happen. I will fight for myself, and I know my family will fight for me. And at that point, I didn't even know about the scale of the campaign to release me.
KELLY: What you were convicted of was spreading false information about the Russian military. For the record, did you spread false information about Russia's military?
KURMASHEVA: Of course I didn't spread false information. I am a journalist. And the fact-checking is, like, our strongest skill at RF Europe, and editing is the strongest skill at RF Europe.
KELLY: You had edited a book - right...
KURMASHEVA: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Telling the stories of Russians who opposed the war in Ukraine.
KURMASHEVA: I co-edited the book bringing the information, the stories of those 40 brave people who opposed the war. That wasn't fake. That was true. People were telling their true stories. And that was the problem with the Russians. They didn't want the true story to be out.
KELLY: Do you regret that book, given everything that happened after?
KURMASHEVA: No, I don't regret that book. And I will always say that our job is dangerous. What we are doing is dangerous, especially us at RF Europe.
KELLY: I want to put to you a question that has been put to some of the senior U.S. officials who negotiated this prisoner exchange, which is whether swaps like the one that secured your freedom will encourage Russia to detain more Americans. You're good leverage for Vladimir Putin to get what he wants. How do you think about that?
KURMASHEVA: Well, I don't think there is a correlation between that. I don't want to believe there is correlation between the swaps and the hostage-taking. Holding journalists, holding those innocent people for an exchange - it shouldn't be happening.
BUTORIN: Curiously, the same question was often asked of me and even my daughters. And, you know, we're obviously the wrong people to ask. We can't - you know, my daughters definitely could not put a price on their mother's life. And, you know, I think by doing this, the free world showed that the free world places a higher value on human life and family values, to be honest, to a point that, you know, we are willing to trade real criminals, real spies in order to save wrongfully detained Americans from imprisonment.
KURMASHEVA: Will you go back, Alsu, to Russia?
KURMASHEVA: Not now. But it was a place of strength and power for me. I grew up there. I went to school there. I went to college there. I admired people for their strength. It will stay like that. I don't have to travel back there to to feel that way. What happened to me was a very nasty and ugly thing to do to me as a journalist, as a mother of two children and as a woman. I would say that it it shouldn't be happening to anyone.
KELLY: That's Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and her husband, Pavel Butorin. She is free today after being imprisoned in Russia for more than nine months. Thanks to you both.
KURMASHEVA: Thank you.
BUTORIN: Thank you for having us on.
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