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WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia on Thursday reached the largest prisoner exchange deal in post-Soviet history, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with several dissidents, including Vladimir Kara-Murza. The multinational deal freed more than two dozen people.

Russian-American journalists Gershkovich Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva arrived in the US shortly before midnight to happily meet their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were there to greet them.

The trade has continued even as relations between Washington and Moscow are at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Back-channel negotiators had explored a trade involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny but eventually agreed after his death in February to a deal with 24 that required major compromises from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin and freedom for journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden has called the exchange the largest ever with Russia, a diplomatic success that successfully welcomes American families back to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflects an inherent imbalance: The United States and its allies are giving up Russians who have been charged or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others detained by the country’s highly politicized legal system on charges that the West sees as corruption.
“A deal like this requires tough decisions,” Biden said, adding, “Nothing is more important to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was imprisoned in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government vehemently deny. “We can’t wait to hold him tight and see his sweet, brave smile up close,” his family said in a statement released by the paper. Emma Tucker, the paper’s executive editor, called the day “a day of joy.”

“As we look forward to this special day, we are committed to making our voices heard in support of Evan as loud as we can. We are so grateful for all the voices that were spoken when Evan was speechless. Finally, together, we can say, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.

Also indicted are Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive who has been in prison since 2018 on charges of spying, which he and Washington deny. Also indicted is Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-Russian citizen who was found guilty in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, a charge denied by her family and employer.
Freed opposition figures include Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kara-Murza, who is serving a 25-year sentence for treason that many believe was politically motivated, and several associates of Navalny. Kremlin critics released include Oleg Orlov, a senior human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, who was jailed for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The Russians have captured Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in 2021 for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years ago, apparently on the orders of Moscow's security services. Throughout the negotiations, Moscow has been pressing for his release, with Putin himself making the call.

At the time of Navalny's death, officials were discussing the possibility of an exchange between Krasikoff and Navalny, but when that opportunity was dashed, senior US officials, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, renewed their push to have Germany release Krasikoff. In the end, a number of the prisoners released by Russia were Germans or German-Russian nationals.
Russia has also received two suspected spies imprisoned in Slovenia, as well as three men indicted by federal authorities in the United States, including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and son of a Russian parliamentarian, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence officer accused of supplying American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway has extradited an academic arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy, and Poland has sent home a man detained on suspicion of spying.
“Today is a powerful example of why having friends is so important in this world,” Biden said.

Altogether, six countries released at least one prisoner, and a seventh, Turkiye, joined in by hosting an exchange venue in Ankara.
Biden has made releasing Americans wrongly detained abroad a key foreign policy agenda for the six months leading up to leaving office. Speaking in the Oval Office to discuss his decision to drop out of a second term, Biden said, “We continue to work around the clock to bring Americans wrongly detained around the world home.”
On Thursday, he held the hand of Whelan's sister Elizabeth and told her she was barely living at the White House while the government tried to free Paul. Then he motioned for Kurmasheva's daughter, Miriam, to come closer and hold her hand, telling everyone in the room that it would have been her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped tears from her eyes.
The Biden administration has already repatriated more than 70 Americans detained in other countries as part of a deal that requires the United States to release a range of prisoners convicted of crimes, including drug and weapons offenses. While widely praised, the deal has also drawn criticism that it incentivizes future hostage-taking and gives adversaries leverage over the United States and its allies.
Roger Carstens, the US government's top hostage negotiator, has tried to defend the deal, saying the number of Americans being held unfairly has actually decreased even as hostage exchanges have increased.
Tucker, the journal’s executive editor, acknowledged the debate, writing in a letter: “We know that the U.S. government recognizes as well as we do that the only way to prevent an accelerated cycle of arresting innocent people as pawns in a vicious geopolitical game is to eliminate the incentives for Russia and others to pursue this despicable course of action.”

Even though she called for a change in the dynamics, she wrote, “Now we celebrate Evan’s return.”
Thursday's prisoner swap of 24 surpassed a deal involving 14 people reached in 2010. In that exchange, Washington released 10 Russians living in the United States, while Moscow deported four, including Sergey Skripal, a double agent who worked with British intelligence. He and his daughter were nearly killed in Britain in 2018 after being poisoned with a toxic substance that Russian agents blamed on him.
There has been speculation for weeks that the exchange would happen soon, given a series of unusual events, including the hasty trial of Gershkovich, which Washington has dismissed as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.
In a secret trial that wrapped up over two days the same week as Gershkovich's trial, Kurmasheva was found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian military, which her family, employers and U.S. officials deny. Several other people imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or for working with Navalny have also been moved from prison to an unknown location in recent days.
Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, while traveling to report to the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. Authorities claimed, without providing any evidence, that he was collecting classified information for the United States. The son of Soviet immigrants who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by The Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich was accused of being wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia to attend a wedding.
Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence, was disqualified from previous high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 exchange of Trevor Reed, a former Marine imprisoned by Moscow, for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking. In December that year, the United States released notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was imprisoned on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States government for allowing Paul to be free,” his family said in a statement.