Suspected Russian spy locked up in Brooklyn freed in prisoner swap for Evan Gershovich, Paul Whelan

NEW YORK — A suspected Russian spy locked up in Brooklyn is being released as part of the prisoner swap that brought Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan home.

Vadim Konoshchenok, a self-described “colonel” for Russia’s intelligence agency who plotted to get around sanctions to send ammo and tech from the U.S. to the Russian military in Ukraine, is part of Thursday’s swap, federal prosecutors confirmed in a court filing.

The swap, which was years in the making, is the largest exchange since the fall of the Soviet Union, with 24 prisoners freed from seven nations.

Russia agreed to free Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal jailed in 2023, Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, and dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post Opinions contributor.

Konoshchenok was among the eight prisoners, three from the U.S., released to Russia.

He was initially stopped at the Estonian border in October 2022 with 35 different types of semiconductors and other electronic components as well as thousands of “U.S.-origin” sniper rifle bullets, the feds allege.

He was released, then arrested in Estonia a month later trying to cross into Russia with about 20 cases of bullets from the U.S. When Estonian authorities searched a warehouse he used, they found 375 pounds of ammo, the feds allege. He’s been held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since last July.

Before the details of the swap were made public, Konoshchenok’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, filed a letter Thursday morning asking about his whereabouts. “I have been unable to locate Mr. Konoshchenok since July 30, 2024; his son has not heard from him since July 29, 2024,” she wrote.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Pravda responded, “The government’s understanding is that the defendant is no longer in the custody of the Attorney General,” and provided a link to the White House’s news release about the prisoner swap.

Shroff told the Daily News she knew of the exchange, but wrote the letter to get confirmation she could bring back to his family.

She also decried the notoriously bad conditions at MDC, where Konoshchenok was held, saying he went without showers for days at a time, and was given two hard-boiled eggs and a potato several days in a row for food.

“For the entire time he has been at the MDC, Mr. Konoshchenok has maintained his innocence, and wanted to go to trial,” she said. “Part of the problem here is that he had served so much time between the time in Estonia and the time in Brooklyn is that he would have taken a plea agreement and he would have been close to done.”