Biggest prisoner swap: America, Russia free several citizens including Evan Gershkovich

US journalists Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and ex-Marine Paul Whelan returned to their homeland, hours after being freed from Russian detention in the biggest prisoner exchange between the two countries since the Cold War. (AP Photo)

The Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich, 32, was detained by Russia while he was on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in March 2023. He is accused of "gathering secret information" on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a facility in the Sverdlovsk region that produces and repairs military equipment, the prosecutor general's office said in a statement. (PTI Photo)

A former marine Whelan was jailed by Moscow on espionage charges. He was arrested in 2018 in Russia, Whelan was convicted of espionage in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in a facility in Mordovia, a Russian region notorious since Soviet times for its penal colonies. (AP Photo)

Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was accused of spreading false information about the Russian army and sentenced to 6½ years in prison on the same day that a court convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage. (PTI Photo)

"Today, three American citizens and one American green-card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally coming home: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza. The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy," US President Joe Biden said. (AP Photo)

The decision to release Vadim Krasikov, the Kremlin hitman serving a life sentence for murdering a Georgian citizen in a Berlin park, was a difficult one but necessary to protect German and US citizens, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. (AFP Photo)

President Vladimir Putin met the returning ex-prisoners on the tarmac of Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport as they descended from their plane. Putin stood at the foot of the mobile stairs and briefly embraced each returnee. The group then moved into the terminal, where Putin made brief remarks. “You will all be nominated for state awards." (AP Photo)

Vadim Krasikov, the Russian at the center of the mass prisoner swap, has long topped the Kremlin’s list for an exchange. Krasikov, 58, is being released by Germany, where he has been imprisoned for murder. Krasikov was convicted for the August 23, 2019, killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany. (AP Photo)