FIRST PICTURES: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris welcome US prisoners released from Russia back on home soil

Russia has freed US journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan as part of the biggest prisoner exchange of its kind since the end of the Cold War.

The detainees landed late on Thursday at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, and were greeted by US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their overwhelmed families.

The White House said the United States had negotiated the trade with Russia, Germany and three other countries. The deal, negotiated in secrecy for more than a year, involved 24 prisoners, including 16 moving from Russia to the West and eight prisoners held in the West being sent back to Russia.

They included Vadim Krasikov, convicted of murdering an exiled dissident in Berlin, the German government said.

Biden hailed the deal as “a feat of diplomacy and friendship” and praised Washington’s allies for their “bold and brave decisions.”.

“Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” Biden said at the White House earlier, flanked by relatives of freed prisoners.

Biden said he owed a particular debt of gratitude to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who made the politically difficult choice to release Krasikov.

The deal provides the Biden administration with a marquee diplomatic success as the US presidential campaign, pitting Harris against former Republican president Donald Trump, enters its final months.

Still, the multi-country deal appeared to be a one-time exchange that does not reset the antagonistic US-Russia relationship.

Trump, who said he did not have details of the swap, asked whether “murderers, killers, or thugs” were released.

“Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps,” the Republican presidential nominee said on social media.

Also involved in the deal were Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Belarus. Turkey coordinated the exchange.

The Kremlin said in a statement its decision to pardon and free prisoners “was made with the aim of returning Russian citizens detained and imprisoned in foreign countries.”

The last major exchange between the United States and Russia in 2010 involved 14 prisoners. The two countries had a high-profile exchange in December 2022, swapping US basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years for vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage, for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met the prisoners returning to Russia on their arrival in Moscow, saying they would be given state awards.

The release of Russians convicted in the West represented a victory for Putin, who had indicated he wanted Krasikov back. Their homeland “had not forgotten you for a moment,” he told them at the airport.

Among the Westerners freed was Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal journalist who had been accused of collecting sensitive military information for the US Central Intelligence Agency, a charge he and his employer denied.

Whelan is a former US marine who was serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony on espionage charges that he denied.

Rico Krieger, a German, had been sentenced to death in Belarus on terrorism charges. He was pardoned by President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, prior to being freed.

Also released was Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison on July 19, the same day as Gershkovich, as well as Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident and US resident serving 25 years for treason after saying Putin was bombing Ukrainian homes, hospitals and schools.

Released along with them were human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin.

The exchange comes in the waning months of Biden’s term in office, years marked by a sharp increase in tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden announced last month that he was abandoning his re-election bid.