Russia released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan on Thursday as part of the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the height of the Cold War.

They were among the 16 people held in Russia who had been released. In exchange, eight Russian prisoners were freed from prisons in the US, Germany, Poland, Norway, and Slovenia.

"The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy," US President Joe Biden said. 

Among those returning to Russia was Vadim Krasikov, convicted in 2021 of shooting to death a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity in a Berlin park in 2019.

The exchange took place at an airport in Turkey's capital Ankara. 

Moscow demanded Krasikov's release 

The deal has hinged on Moscow's demand for the return of Krasikov.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, "It was not easy for anyone to make this decision to deport a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment after only a few years in prison."

The chancellor added the interest of the state in seeing Krasikov punished had to be weighed against the danger to life and liberty faced by innocent people in Russian prison, including those imprisoned for political reasons. 

Biden said he "particularly" owed "a great sense of gratitude" to Scholz. 

The deal "required me to get some significant concessions from Germany, which they originally concluded they could not do because of the person in question," Biden said.

Who are some of those released?

Reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested last year in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg while on assignment. He was accused of spying for the CIA. He and the WSJ have denied the accusations. 

Whelan, who holds US, British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 on charges of spying due to his work connections within the US intelligence community. These charges have been vehemently denied by both Whelan and Washington.

He was convicted in 2020 and given a 16-year prison sentence.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian national and journalist at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist, was detained in October 2023 and charged with failure to register as a foreign agent.

She was convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military in what was largely seen as a sham trial. 

Kara-Murza, 42, has persistently criticized President Vladimir Putin’s rule. He was handed a record 25-year prison sentence in April last year on treason and other charges over his criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Days of speculation

Rumors of the swap came on the heels of reports on Tuesday that Whelan and Kara-Murza had been moved from their usual locations in Russian prisons. 

Their lawyers said they had been unable to find their clients amidst simultaneous reports of Russian government planes moving in and out of different prisons over several days.

At the same time, Russian news agency RIA reported that four Russians jailed in the United States had been removed from official prison databases. One of those people was Alexander Vinnik, an alleged Russian cybercrime kingpin.

This is the second high-profile prisoner swap in as many years between the US and Russia, following the release of basketball star Britney Griner in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout.

lo,es,rc/wmr (AFP, Reuters)