Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan returned to US soil on Thursday thanks to a historic prisoner swap deal with Russia.

The exchange brought home four Americans – Gershkovich, Whelan, journalist Alsu Alsu Kurmasheva, and permanent resident Vladimir Kara-Murza – as well as dissidents and other detainees who were released to Germany

The swap was hailed as a decisive victory, but also a reminder for many that several US citizens are still being held by Russian authorities – including a ballerina facing years in prison for donating $51 to a pro-Ukraine group and an adopted man looking for happiness in his birth country.

Dual US-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina, 33, was detained in Russia on suspicion of treason in January 2024.

The amateur ballerina was visiting family when the Federal Security Service (FSB) nabbed her for allegedly transferring $51.80 from a US bank account to the pro-Ukraine group Razom.

Karelina relocated to the US about 10 years ago and became a citizen in 2021, her social media indicated.

“She told me she’s got a 6 a.m. wake-up call, [got] to go to bed by 10 p.m. at night. The lights stay on all the time, so she’s got trouble sleeping,” her boyfriend, Chris Van Hardeen, told “Fox & Friends” of her brutal life inside the Yekaterinburg detention center.

Karelina’s closed-doors trial in Yekaterinburg started on June 20. If convicted of treason, she faces 12 years to life in prison.

“I’m happy for the people, the Americans, who have returned to their families,” van Hardeen told Reuters in the wake of the Aug. 1 prisoner swap – though he added that he was “heartbroken” that Karelina is still trapped overseas.

Karelina was not a candidate for the swap, van Hardeen explained, because Russia’s“process” requires detainees to be convicted before they can be traded.

“We’ve got to work through the trial, Ksenia’s trial is next week. That’s why she’s not on the list, because we need to follow procedure,” he said.

As of Friday, the State Department has not declared Karelina wrongfully detained.

US Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, was arrested in Vladivostok on May 2, 2024.

Black – who traveled to Russia on his own from his station in South Korea – pleaded not guilty to charges of threatening to kill his girlfriend, but said he was “partially guilty” of stealing $113 from her.

He was found guilty in June, and sentenced to 4 years and eight months in prison and a fine of $456. His defense plans to appeal the verdict.

Black’s mother, Melody Jones, insisted that her son – who has a wife and child in the US – was lured to Russia by his girlfriend.

“He wanted to see her for the last time before going home, and so he went there,” Jones told NBC News in May. “I think she convinced him to come there.”

“I told him not to go. I was more worried about him going to Russia than I was when he was in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said

Black’s estranged wife, Megan, added that her husband and his girlfriend “fought like cats and dogs.”

The US State Department has not ruled that Black was wrongfully detained – though the Pentagon claimed that Black broke Army rules with his unauthorized trip to Russia.

By July 2024, the Army stopped paying Black’s salary, officials told Military.com.

Robert Woodland, 33, was arrested on Jan. 5, 2024, on charges of illegal acquisition or possession of drugs.

He pleaded partially guilty and was convicted on the remaining charges of attempting to traffic large amounts of drugs in early July, his lawyer said.

Woodland was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.

The US State Department has not directly commented on the allegations against Woodland, the BBC noted at the time of his sentencing.

Woodland was born in Russia, but was adopted by an American couple and raised in the US. His return to his birth country and reunion with his biological mother was documented in a Russian television series, state media outlets said.

“I was drawn to Russia with a tremendous force. And here I am. I have decided to stay in my motherland forever,” Woodland told a local newspaper in 2020.

Rock musician Michael Travis Leake, 52, was arrested by Russian authorities on suspicion of drug trafficking on June 6, 2023.

Leake was accused of selling mephedrone – which has similar effects to cocaine and MDMA – and organizing a drug trafficking scheme “involving young people,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

“I am not admitting to any guilt,” Leake said in a video obtained by NBC News that appeared to show him shortly after his arrest.

Leake, a former US military paratrooper, moved to Moscow in 2010.

He fronted the band Lovi Noch, and was a producer for other music groups in Moscow, CNN reported.

Leake was even interviewed by Anthony Bourdain for an episode of “Parts Unknown” in 2014.

In a brief clip from the sit-down, Leake can be heard teasing Bourdain that the “KGB,” or the Soviet-era security agency, was responsible for a mic failure.

“I’m quite sure you’ve had someone on your tail the whole time you’ve been here,” he cautioned the chef.

Leake and his bandmates were “very vocal about the freedom of speech and state oppression in Russia,” “Parts Unknown” producer Darya Tarasova told CNN in the wake of Leake’s arrest.

“The last time we spoke was in 2018 and he seemed depressed and upset, but Travis would never do the things he is being accused of. He is an American in Russia and is very aware of the situation he’s in. But I’m surprised he stayed after the war started, as it was very risky for him,” she added.

Leake was sentenced to 13 years behind bars in July 2024, the same week that Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich was hit with a 16-year sentence for espionage.

Texas resident David Barnes was arrested in Moscow on Jan. 13, 2022 based on allegations that he had abused his young sons years earlier, ABC News reported.

Barnes, 66, was in Russia hoping to gain access to his children through the family court system after his ex-wife, Svetlana Koptyaeva, brought them to her native country in violation of a custody order, his family told ABC.

Koptyaeva previously accused Barnes of sexually abusing his kids during their divorce proceedings.

The allegations were investigated in 2018 by the Department of Family and Protective Services, which found insufficient evidence and closed the case without any official finding of abuse, documents uploaded by Barnes’ family showed.

Koptyaeva brought the boys to Russia in 2019. There is currently a warrant for her arrest in the US on felony charges of interfering with child custody.

In August 2022, former Rep. Kevin Brady vowed that he was working with the State Department to secure Barnes’ release.

“Mr. Barnes has been arrested and detained for political purposes,” Brady told ABC13 at the time. “We continue to urge the Biden administration to do all it can to resolve this situation and free Mr. Barnes.”

Barnes was found guilty of the abuse charges in February 2024, and sentenced to 21 years in a high-security penal colony, ABC News reported.

His defense attorney, Gleb Glinka, said he was “horrified” by the verdict.

Teacher Marc Fogel, 61, was arrested on Aug. 12, 2021 when he went through customs at the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow with about 20 grams of medical marijuana in his luggage.

The cannabis – which is illegal in Russia – was prescribed to Fogel by a doctor in Pennsylvania for chronic pain following multiple knee and back surgeries, his family said.

At the time of his arrest, Fogel had taught at the Anglo-American School in Moscow for almost 10 years. He planned to retire at the end of the year and return to the US, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

In June 2022, Fogel was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 14 years at a penal colony – a fate his niece said was like a “death sentence.”

The next month, the educator demanded that the Biden administration give equal attention to his case amid the outcry over WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was also being held in Russia on drug charges.

“That hurt. Teachers are at least as important as bballers,” Fogel wrote to his family about the news that the US was considering trading Griner for “Merchant of Death” arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner was released back to the US in December 2022, while Fogel remained in Russia.

Fogel’s 95-year-old mother, Malphine Fogel, told The Post that she was devastated her son was also left out of the historic Aug. 1 prisoner swap that freed three US citizens and one permanent resident.

“I don’t think the administration is trying hard enough for him. I guess because he is a common American citizen,” she lamented.

“I am happy for the people released and their families,” Malphine said, “[but] I can’t fathom why Marc wasn’t included.”

Businessman Eugene “Gene” Spector was arrested on Feb. 19, 2020 on bribery charges.

Spector was born in St. Petersburg and later moved to the US, where became a citizen. He was previously the chairman of the Medpolymerprom Group, a medical equipment company.

In September 2022, Spector was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to bribing an aide of former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during his time at Medpolymerprom, local news agencies said.

In August 2023, Spector was remanded back to pre-trial custody on an additional charge of espionage.

The court session in that case was held behind closed doors, as the details are classified, according to Interfax.

If convicted on the espionage charge, Spector faces an additional 10 to 20 years in prison.

The US State Department has said that it does not believe Spector is being unlawfully detained.

Thomas Stwalley was arrested on July 6, 2018 on what he claims are false charges of intent to distribute marijuana.

He is currently in the seventh year of his 11-year sentence at the IK-17 penal colony, where Paul Whelan was also housed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Stwalley told the Journal that the Russian authorities planted drugs on him in order to take cash and possessions from his home. He pleaded not guilty at a closed-door trial, but was found guilty.

Unlike Whelan and Gershkovich, the State Department has not said that Stwalley was wrongly detained.

When the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, visited Whelan at IK-17 last year, she did not try to see Stwalley.

Stwalley and other inmates work in a large factory building, where they mostly make pants and coats for the work-clothing company Technoavia, he told the Journal.

The company uses a polyester wadding called sentipon, which requires the prisoners to constantly wash fungus off their hands, he explained.

There are also sometimes fights among the inmates – particularly during television time, when the Russian propaganda news stokes political feelings.

New Jersey musician James “Jimmy” Wilgus was working on a movie soundtrack with a director in Russia when he was arrested on Nov. 7, 2016.

Wilgus was taken to a police station, where he was supposedly coerced by a translator into signing a confession that he did not understand, his parents told WUSA 9.

The police then raided Wilgus’ home and threw him in a detention center on charges of indecent exposure based on eyewitnesses who supposedly saw him in a part of Russia that he claims to have never visited, his parents explained.

He was found guilty and sentenced to 12.5 years at IK-17, the Wall Street Journal reported.

LIke Stwalley, Wilgus has not been formally found to have been wrongfully detained. Ambassador Lynne Tracy also failed to visit him during her stop at the prison last year, the Journal noted.

The harsh conditions at the labor colony have taken a serious toll on Wilgus’ health, his parents wrote in The Post.

“We’re proud to say IK-17 has failed to break Jimmy’s spirit and will — but it has destroyed his health. He now suffers from a spinal issue, osteochondrosis, as well as a failing liver and hypertension that wasn’t present prior to his incarceration,” they said.

In July 2024, Judicial Watch sued the State Department for all records “related to why the department has not issued a ‘wrongful’ detention designation” for Wilgus.

Wirth Post wires