Biden hails ‘feat of diplomacy’ as US journalist freed in biggest prisoner swap since Cold War

Evan Gershkovich was most high-profile of 16 inmates released by Russia in deal involving five Western countries

The American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been freed by Russia as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.
Joe Biden, the US president, said on Thursday that a “feat of diplomacy” had secured the release of the reporter and 15 other “wrongfully detained” prisoners in Russia after months of negotiations with the Kremlin.
The prisoners were handed over to US officials in Turkey on Thursday in an unprecedented deal that involved five Western countries and Russia.
Mr Gershkovich, a 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter, had been in Russian custody since March 2023, when he was arrested on a reporting trip and accused of spying for the American government.
As he left Russian custody on Thursday, the journalist requested a sit-down interview with Vladimir Putin on an official form.
Paul Whelan, a British-American former US marine, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian activist, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American reporter, were also released on Thursday.
At a press conference at which he was accompanied by the prisoners’ families, Mr Biden hailed the deal, highlighting his record on prisoner negotiations and pointing out he had “inherited” several cases from the Trump administration.
Russia received eight of its own prisoners in exchange for the sixteen Westerners, including Vadim Krasikov, an intelligence agent known as the “bicycle assassin”, and Artem and Anna Dultsev, a spy couple who lived under deep cover in Slovenia.
Donald Trump, who earlier this year had claimed that only he could secure the release of Mr Gershkovich, criticised the deal. The former president said he believed it also involved a cash payment to Russia from the US, but did not give evidence for the claim.
“Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps.
“Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING – and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future.”
Trump had previously said Mr Gershkovich would be released in the early days of his second administration if he wins this year’s presidential election.
Andrei Kozyrev, a former Russian foreign minister, warned that Putin’s regime now “sees a pattern of doing business with the West: take people and foreign countries hostage and gain criminals… in a swap of ‘good will’”.
The deal, struck by the CIA, State Department and White House national security team, involved more Western countries than any other prisoner swap in history, and saw the release of Russian prisoners in Germany, Poland, Slovenia and Norway.
It would have included Alexei Navalny, the leading Russian opposition activist, who died in an Arctic prison in February.
The swap took place at Ankara airport in Turkey and was carried out by Turkey’s MIT intelligence service, the country said.
Mr Biden said prisoner negotiations “come with tough calls” but added that “it says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans”.
“The deal that made this possible was a feat of diplomacy and friendship. Multiple countries helped get this done,” he added. “They joined a difficult, complex negotiation at my request. And I personally thank them all again.”
US officials said Mr Biden worked personally on the agreement, and was finalising arrangements with his counterparts in Slovenia one hour before his announcement that he would drop out of the presidential election last month.
He also convinced Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, to release Krasikov from prison to complete the deal in talks held during Mr Scholz’s visit to the White House in February.
On Thursday, Mr Scholz said the “difficult” decision to release the convicted Russian hitman had “saved lives”.
“Nobody took this decision to deport a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment after only a few years… lightly,” he said at Cologne airport, in western Germany, where some of the released prisoners were due to arrive.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said the “historic” prisoner swap had required months of negotiation with Russia and coordination between Western allies to pull off.
He said the deal was “vintage Joe Biden, rallying American allies to save American citizens”, adding: “If you had not had Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, I don’t think this would have happened.”
A senior US administration official said the deal did not signal a thaw in relations between the Biden administration and Russia, and condemned Putin’s war in Ukraine and partnerships with Iran and China.
“I would counsel anyone to be cautious in surmising from this that it’s some sort of breakthrough in the relationship or that it portends some detente with Russia or easing in our relationships,” the official said. “That’s not going to be the case.”
The official described Krasikov, who assassinated a Georgian national in Berlin’s Tiergarten park in 2019, as a “bad dude” but said his release was necessary to secure the freedom of Mr Gershkovich and others.
“They obviously considered [Krasikov] a key asset and wanted him back, and it was no small thing for the German government to agree to let him go,” the official said.
Putin personally greeted the released Russians as they arrived at the airport in Moscow on Thursday night.
Mr Gershkovich’s release followed months of lobbying by the Wall Street Journal and other Western media outlets, coordinated under a “Free Evan” campaign. 
It is the most politically significant of the deal after his trial was condemned as a sham by Western politicians.
On July 19, he had been sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage. Russian officials had previously they would not consider a prisoner swap until after his trial had concluded.
Mr Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition figure, activist and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, has been in prison in Russia since April last year, when he received a 25-year sentence for criticising Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine the previous year.
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “particularly relieved that British nationals Vladimir Kara-Murza and Paul Whelan will soon be reunited with their families”.
Mr Whelan, a former US marine who holds British, American, Canadian and Irish citizenship, was arrested in 2018 by FSB agents and accused of spying for the West. He denied the charges.
The other captives released to the West by Russia are Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lik, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanysheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov and Sasha Skochilenko.
Many are associates of Mr Navalny. US officials said Mr Navalny’s death, which was condemned by Western leaders, had complicated the swap negotiations with the Kremlin.