3 newly freed Americans are back on US soil after landmark prisoner exchange with Russia

WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan , along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza , in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva , a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them.

The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine . Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny , but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.

Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of swaps with Russia, as a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the returning Americans to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an innate imbalance: The U.S. and allies gave up Russians charged or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others imprisoned by the country’s highly politicized legal system on charges seen by the West as trumped-up.

“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said, He added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government vehemently denied. His family said in a statement released by the newspaper that “we can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close.” The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”

Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied, and Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

The dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of Navalny . Freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military , and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

The Russian side got Vadim Krasikov , who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. Throughout the negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his release, with Putin himself raising it.

At the time of Navalny’s death, officials were discussing a possible exchange involving Krasikov. But with that prospect erased, senior U.S. officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a fresh push to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a handful of the prisoners Russia released were either German nationals or dual German-Russian nationals.

Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker , and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy ; Poland sent back a man it detained on espionage charges.

“Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” Biden said.