President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed the Americans freed from Russia as they touched down safely on US soil late on Thursday, following what marks the highest profile prisoner swap with the West since the end of the Cold War.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, security executive Paul Whelan and radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at 11.37pm on a chartered plane from Ankara, in Turkey, bringing to an end months and years of negotiations to bring them home.
In emotional scenes on the tarmac, Biden was the first to greet each of the three as they stepped off the plane, followed by Harris, before the newly-freed Americans were reunited with their families.
Whelan exited first, shaking hands with the president and asking him: “How you doing, sir?” He then hugged his sister to applause from those gathered on the tarmac.
A beaming Gershkovich followed, hugging both Biden and Harris before his mother Ella Milman – who has been credited with playing a crucial role in keeping up the fight to bring him home – fell into his arms.
Kurmasheva stepped off the plane last, with Biden wishing the radio journalist’s daughter “happy birthday”, as she ran up to her mother crying. “I love you so much, I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. Her husband added: “This is real.”
Biden told reporters on the tarmac that the historic deal “was a long time coming” as he praised America’s allies who “stepped up and took a chance for us.”
“I don’t buy this idea that you’re not gonna let you’re gonna let these people rot in jail, because other people may be captured,” he said.
Harris praised Biden saying the result of the lengthy negotiations marks the “extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy, and understands the strength that rest in understanding the significance of diplomacy.”
The prisoner swap took place following years of complex negotiations and secret meetings involving several countries including the US, Russia and Germany, which had ramped up in recent months. Sixteen people were set free from Russia and Belarus including the three Americans.
Gershkovich, a reporter for the Journal based in Moscow covering the Russia-Ukranian war, was arrested back in March 2023 while in Yekaterinburg and accused of being a spy.
He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage last month in a brief trial behind closed doors. He had pleaded not guilty to charges, which were dismissed as nonsense by governments around the world.
Whelan, a Michigan resident who served in the Marine Corps and worked in corporate security, was visiting Russia in 2018 when he was arrested at a Moscow hotel. In 2020, he was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges and has always maintained his innocence.
Kurmasheva, an editor for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was convicted for violating a Russian law targeting foreign journalists by forcing them to register as foreign agents. She was sentenced to six and a half years in June.
The prisoner swap was in part due to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s desire to see the return of assassin Vadim Krasikov, who has been held in a German prison since 2019 for the murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin.
Krasikov, 58, described by Putin as a “patriot,” was returned along with seven other Russians including a hacker, an alleged money launderer, a credit card fraudster Roman Seleznev, and a pair of intelligence agents. The prisoner exchange took place in Turkey.
Negotiations in recent months have been led by Biden and his national security team, in what are now the final months of his presidency, following the announcement last month that he will not seek re-election. It emerged that the president made one of the most crucial diplomatic calls just hours before he posted the statement confirming he was quitting the race.
Harris met the Americans on the tarmac alongside the president, days after she has taken up the mantle and is likely to become the Democratic presidential nominee at the party’s convention later this month.
On Thursday afternoon, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump slammed the prisoner exchange, calling US negotiators “an embarrassment.”
In a post on Truth Social, the former president asked for details of the swap, including whether it had been made in cash, and bragging about his own deal-making skills. So far, he appears to be alone in his criticisms of the historic deal.
Though spearheaded by the White House, crucial assistance with the negotiations came from a wide pool, including the detainees’ colleagues, loved ones, tech moguls, Hillary Clinton, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, and Gershkovich’s mother.
In a statement, Ella Milman and her family thanked Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and “every US or foreign government official who helped get Evan released.”
“We have waited 491 days for Evan’s release, and it’s hard to describe what today feels like,” the statement read.
“We can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close. Most important now is taking care of Evan and being together again. No family should have to go through this, and so we share relief and joy today with Paul and Alsu’s families.”
The statement paid special thanks to the Journal and parent company Dow Jones which had “taken care of Evan and our entire family since the beginning”, they said.
Thursday’s swap comes at one of the lowest points in US-Russia relations since the Cold War, with Putin’s refusal to halt attacks against Ukraine following the invasion in February 2022.
In 2010, US officials rounded up 10 Russians alleged to be sleeper agents who were then exchanged in an unusual swap for four Russians imprisoned in their homeland, including Sergei Skripal, a double agent working with the British intelligence service. Skripal took up residence in the UK, where he and his daughter suffered near-fatal nerve agent poisoning in 2018 that officials blamed on Russia.