President Joe Biden had a hopeful Thanksgiving message for Russia-detained Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich and their families.
“We ain’t giving up,” Biden told reporters Thursday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, regarding the prospect of their release.
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This Thanksgiving is Gerschkovich’s first behind bars in Moscow after the Wall Street Journal reporter was detained in March and charged in April on espionage charges while reporting on Russia’s defense industrial complex. Whelan, a former Marine and security consultant, has been in detention since 2018 and received a 16-year prison sentence for spying in 2020.
The Americans maintain their innocence, while the United States has condemned their detention as illegitimate.
Biden made the comment outside the Nantucket Fire Department building after dropping off five pumpkin pies to the firefighter crew on duty for the holiday.
The president also told reporters he was not prepared to speak about the Israel–Hamas truce hostage deal “until it’s done.”
On whether Abigail Mor Edan, a 3-year-old Israeli American girl kidnapped by Hamas, will be among the first hostages freed on Friday, he added: “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
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Thirteen women and children taken during Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel are expected to be released on Friday, though that number is anticipated to increase to 50 during the four-day ceasefire brokered by Qatar.
“The criteria on which to prioritize the hostages was purely humanitarian,” Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Majed al Ansari told reporters Thursday in Doha. “Our focus was on getting the women and children out of harm’s way as soon as possible, which is basically what we are doing within this agreement.”
