As he stood on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews late Thursday night, Pavel Butorin was in disbelief.
Days before, his wife of two decades — Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva — had been sentenced to 6½ years in a Russian prison for spreading false information about the country’s military, a conviction press freedom and human rights groups denounced as politically-motivated.
Kurmasheva, a dual U.S. and Russian citizen whose family lives in Prague, was first detained in Russia in June 2023 and spent nine months in a Russian prison, according to her employer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
But late Thursday, Butorin and their daughters watched as Kurmasheva, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan arrived at the Maryland facility.
“It was only then when I realized it is actually happening,” Butorin told NBC News.
Up until that point, he said, the process of getting Kurmasheva out of Russia had been “covered in secrecy” and Butorin knew little about what was unfolding.
Butorin and his two daughters had planned on attending a Taylor Swift concert in Poland on Friday — a birthday gift for their daughter Miriam, who turned 13 — with four tickets the family had bought almost a year ago.
Then, Butorin said, he got a surprise invitation to the White House. The family wasn’t told why, though he hoped for the best.
“I thought, why would they invite us to the White House with bad news?” he said.
The phone call at the Oval Office between the freed prisoners and their families that followed was a “total surprise,” he said.
In a video of the call that President Joe Biden posted to X, the couple’s other daughter, 16-year-old Bibi, can be heard telling her mother where they are and laughing.
“Guys, I love you,” Kurmasheva says.
After she arrived in the United States, Bibi said in the interview, she and her sister hugged their mother and told her how great it was to finally have her back after so long.
“It’s so weird to be with someone all the time every day and then just to have her not be there anymore,” Bibi said.
While on the tarmac, their younger daughter described how much she just wanted to touch Kurmasheva, Butorin said.
“She missed the touch,” he said.
Kurmasheva was initially detained during a visit to her elderly mother in Russia for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities, her employer said. Her passports were confiscated and she was detained again in October for failing to declare herself as a foreign agent, the organization said.
Russian authorities later investigated her for the false information charge. She was convicted July 19 and sentenced.
Butorin said he wanted to make it clear that his wife had done nothing wrong.
“Alsu is not a criminal,” he said. “No matter what verdict or sentence a corrupt Russian court issued against her, we know that she’s not a criminal.”