Americans Gershkovich and Whelan back home after historic prisoner swap

Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the developments in the posts below.

Paul Whelan points to tally marks on a Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag while standing with other recently freed Americans and their families at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday.

There was a large mingling of the freed Americans, their families and officials, including US hostage envoy Roger Carstens, in a large aircraft hangar at the joint base in San Antonio.

Carstens flew with the returnees and their families from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Texas. The group posed for photos, including with the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag.

“This is us down here. Those last three, that’s us,” Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who was detained in Russian prisons for nearly six years, said, pointing at the tally marks on the flag.  

An official explained the next steps, including medical ones. He said they should “get some rest and recuperation.”

Whelan spoke at the base, at one point holding up a box with an iPad, saying that Russia’s Federal Security Service stole his “iPad and iPhone, so this is a replacement so I can be normal again.” He also appeared to hold a bag with a bottle of alcohol, joking that that was for “medicinal purposes.”

He confirmed he was wearing the flag lapel pin given to him by President Joe Biden, saying it was a “keepsake.”

From left, US Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden greet Whelan upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday.

“It didn’t feel real until we were flying over England,” he said, noting his British citizenship. “As we came over England and I looked down, that’s when it became real.”

Whelan credited his family’s “harsh words” with the government on “having to keep them accountable for taking care of us.”

Whelan also expressed gratitude to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Carstens and his team, and “other government agencies you’ll find out about.” 

The other returnees did not speak to the press. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva also landed in the United States on Thursday.

American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan were among the 24 detainees released Thursday as part of a complex prisoner swap between Russia, the US and other Western nations.

A host of Russian dissidents were also freed while in return Moscow got a former FSB colonel convicted of murder as well as several individuals accused of spying or cybercrime.

Here’s who was part of the prisoner swap:

President Joe Biden posted a video to his X account late Thursday of the Oval Office call between former US Marine Paul Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and their families, capturing the emotional moment when families first learned there relatives were released from Russian custody in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.  

“They’re on a bus. They’re heading to the airport. Once they get on the plane, we’re going to call them. And you’re going to hear them all,” Biden can be seen telling family members in the Oval Office.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m not as good as your families are feeling. They’re all standing around the Oval Office desk here and we just want to say how overwhelmed we are. You’ve been wrongfully detained for a long time and we’re glad you’re home,” the president told the newly released detainees, before handing the phone over to individual family members to greet their relatives. 

Biden offered a special shoutout to Elizabeth Whelan, who he joked has “lived in the Oval Office.” 

“Paul, it’s incredible, absolutely incredible this moment. And I just want you to know, the whole family is standing by,” she told her brother. 

And Vladimir Kara-Murza, a green-card holder also released in Thursday’s exchange, offered an emotional thank you to the president for negotiating his release.

“No word is strong enough about this, I was sure I was going to die in prison, because I don’t believe what’s happening,” he told the president. “I still think it’s a—I still think I’m sleeping in my prison cell in Omsk instead of hearing your voice. But I just want you to know that you’ve done a wonderful thing by saving so many people. I think there are 16 of us on a plane. Again, I still can’t believe it’s happening. So I just wanted to say that I don’t think that there are many things more important than saving human lives.”  

Press was not invited to capture the moment on camera.

Watch the video below:

Former President Donald Trump said the prisoner swap that resulted in Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and others being released as part of the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War was a “win for Putin.”  

He said, “They got a great deal. The Russians made a great deal. I’m not going to be criticizing it, because it’s good to have them home, but they got a phenomenal deal and that sets a very bad precedent. Very, very bad precedent.”

“The deal is very complex, because it just came out. So, nobody understands the deal yet,” Trump said, adding, “And they make it complex so you can’t understand how bad the deal is for us. But we got him back and we could have had him back. We should have had him back a long time ago. It should have never happened. It would have never happened. He shouldn’t have been taken in the first place. And it would have never happened with us if I was president.”

The swap involved 24 detainees and seven countries, and Turkey said it played a mediator role. A host of Russian dissidents were also freed, and Moscow got a convicted Russian assassin who had been jailed in Germany.

Former President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on July 31.

In May, former President Donald Trump declared that he was the only person who could obtain the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison. After President Joe Biden proved the claim wrong on Thursday by securing the release of Gershkovich and others in a multi-country prisoner exchange, Trump posted a series of skeptical questions on social media.

Among other things, Trump wrote: “Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs? 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. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse.”

Biden White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Thursday that no money was exchanged and no sanctions were loosened as part of the Thursday deal involving Gershkovich. You can read here about who else was freed in the 24-person swap.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby responded to Trump’s criticism on CNN Friday, pointing out that several Americans who were detained in Russia during Trump’s administration, such as Whelan and Trevor Reed, were later freed under Biden. “The previous administration also conducted prisoner exchanges. The previous administration also had to make tough decisions to get Americans home. … That’s what you have to do when you have people in harm’s way over there. You’ve got to make these tough decisions. It’s not easy.”

FactCheck.org debunked this Trump claim about his record on securing the release of American prisoners abroad when he previously made it in 2022.

Read more here about four prisoner exchanges under Trump.

France welcomed the release of political prisoners in Russia, including Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, according to a statement Friday from the country’s foreign ministry. 

It also called for the release of those who remain “arbitrarily detained in Russia,” notably French researcher Laurent Vinatier, whose detention was extended by a Moscow court on Wednesday. 

The statement added that France “pays tribute to the women and men who defend freedom of expression and opinion despite the risks involved,” and reiterates France’s “outrage at the death of Alexei Navalny.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference about Thursday’s prisoner exchange in Cologne, Germany, on August 1.

Germany’s government has explained why it took the controversial decision to free Vadim Krasikov, the Russian hitman jailed for murder, in Thursday’s prisoner exchange.

Krasikov, a former high-ranking FSB colonel, was convicted of murdering a former Chechen fighter in a Berlin park in 2019, and was later sentenced to life in a German prison.

In a statement Thursday evening, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Germany had weighed its “obligation” to keep its citizens safe against the need to help its allies to free “innocent people” detained in Russia, like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

In a lengthy piece published after Gershkovich was freed, the WSJ reported that the fate of Krasikov was crucial to the deal, and revealed the painstaking efforts to persuade a skeptical German government to agree to release the KGB hitman.

Eventually, the White House agreed to send a formal request to the German government requesting the release of Krasikov as part of the prisoner exchange, a move that gave the German government diplomatic cover, the Journal reported.

A top White House official on Friday rebuked Republican vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, for his comments about the motivation for the historic prisoner swap between the United States and Russia.

The Ohio senator told CNN’s Steve Contorno that he believes President Vladimir Putin agreed to Thursday’s exchange because he was “cleaning house” ahead of a possible Trump administration.

Kirby also responded to former President Donald Trump, who hit the Biden administration for giving too much up in exchange for Thursday’s swap.

“Trevor Reid was taken in the previous administration’s time at office. Mr. Biden got him home. Paul Whelan was taken in the previous administration’s time in office, President Biden got Paul home,” Kirby said. “And I would stress that zero dollars were exchanged in this deal that brought these people home last night, it was all about people to people exchanges. And the last thing I’ll say, Kate, is that the previous administration also conducted prisoner exchanges.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks to reporters during a press briefing at the White House on August 1.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan took a victory lap Friday morning, celebrating the news three Americans arrived home Thursday night after being detained in Russia.

Sullivan said Thursday’s prisoner swap, which saw Russia exchange 16 people held in Russian detention, including convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov, for eight Russians held by the United States, Norway, Slovenia, and Poland, “says a lot about the different priorities of the United States and our allies on the one hand and Russia on the other hand.”

“These are hard decisions, as the president has said. You have to think hard about who you release in a prisoner exchange, that’s been true for decades,” Sullivan told CBS. “But at the end of the day, the president looked at this deal, and he said what we are getting – the value of human life, the value of putting families back together, the value of standing of freedom of the press, far exceeds what we are giving up by sending a few more criminals back to Russia. So, you make that judgment, you make that determination, and then the president makes the tough call and he’s proud of the call he made here.”

The children of Russian intelligence agents, who were among the detainees released as part of a historic prisoner swap between Russia, the US and other Western nations, only discovered their Russian identity on the plane en route to Moscow, the Kremlin said Friday. 

The boy and girl, whose parents are Russian spies Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva who were living undercover in Slovenia, “found out that they were Russian only when the plane took off from Ankara,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a daily call. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted them on the tarmac in Spanish as they didn’t speak Russian and didn’t even know who Putin was, Peskov said. 

After coming down the plane’s stairs, Doltseva, holding her tears, hugged Putin, who was standing on the red carpet rolled on the tarmac holding bouquets of flowers. Putin kissed Dultseva on the cheek and shoulder, and gave her and her daughter bouquets. 

Putin briefly hugged Dultsev, too, and then the rest of the released Russians, before the group walked together on the red carpet away from the plane. 

Some background: Dultsev and Dultseva, who posed as Argentinians, pleaded guilty to espionage in a court in Ljubljana on Wednesday and were sentenced to serve time in prison. 

While living undercover in Slovenia, Dultsev posed as an IT businessman named Ludvig Gish. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to more than a year and a half in prison, which the court said was equivalent to time spent. He was set to be deported to Russia and was banned from entering Slovenia for five years.

Dultseva posed as an art dealer and gallery owner and went by the name Maria Rosa Mayer Munos. She was also set to be deported. 

During the call with journalists, Peskov also revealed some additional details of prisoner exchange negotiations between Russia and the United States, saying that they were primarily conducted through the FSB and the CIA.

Asked about other Russians detained abroad, Peskov said that “the fate of all our Russians who are held in custody abroad, in the United States, is a matter of constant concern for all our relevant agencies, which will continue the relevant work.”

In late June, CIA officials held a secret meeting with Russian intelligence officers in an undisclosed Middle Eastern capital city to present a proposal for a possible prisoner swap. It was the latest in a series of offers US officials had made to Russia in a yearslong effort to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Russia.

But this time, the CIA had something new to offer: Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who’d been convicted of executing a man in broad daylight in Berlin and was serving a life sentence in a German prison.

The proposal the CIA offered to the Russians that day was the culmination of months of work by US officials to convince the Germans to release Krasikov, who’s seen as having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The expansive deal presented that day included trading the Russian assassin for two high-profile Americans jailed in Russia on baseless charges of espionage: former US Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

The Russian officials took the proposal back to Moscow. In early July, in a phone call with CIA Director Bill Burns, the Russian side indicated to the Americans that they agreed to the deal in principle, but the specifics still needed to be hammered out. Then on July 17, Moscow accepted the terms by transmitting their answer to the CIA, setting the stage for the largest prisoner exchange between the US and Russia since the Cold War, one that involved 24 prisoners and seven countries.

It was a remarkably swift conclusion to years of painstaking negotiations between the US and more than half a dozen countries.

Read CNN’s full timeline of the negotiations.

Paul Whelan displays an American flag pin he received from President Joe Biden as he arrives at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who was detained in Russian prisons for nearly six years, said “thank you to everybody” following his arrival to the United States as a freed man.

While proudly displaying an American flag pin given to him by President Joe Biden, Whelan told media gathered at Kelly Field in Texas that his journey to freedom didn’t feel real at first.

“It didn’t feel real until we were flying over England. I’m a British citizen, Irish citizen, Canadian and American. So as we came over England and I looked down, that’s when it became real,” he said. 

Whelan, along with Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, first landed at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, DC, following a multi-nation deal to secure their freedom.

The freed Americans traveled to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, following their brief stop at Joint Base Andrews. 

Whelan, Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are now expected to have a medical evaluation at nearby Brooke Army Medical Center.

Whelan also held up a flag honoring hostages and wrongful detainees.

Paul Whelan recalled his experience in Russian detainment began with a “two-week vacation” before Russian authorities grabbed him and claimed he was a spy and a general with the Defense Intelligence Agency. 

Whelan joked, “I’m never going back there again.”

Whelan credited his family’s “harsh words” with the government “having to keep them accountable for taking care of us.”

Whelan also expressed gratitude to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens.

“They worked tirelessly,” Whelan said, adding there were a lot of agencies involved and he was “very appreciative of that.”

Former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva have arrived at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas.

Following their arrival, they are expected to be transported to nearby Brooke Army Medical Center for medical evaluation.

Alsu Kurmasheva, second from left, stands with Paul Whelan, center, and Evan Gershkovich, third from right, at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday, August 2.

The three freed Americans who landed at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, DC, on Thursday evening, are now en route to Texas to undergo medical evaluation.

The plane carrying the freed Americans departed Joint Base Andrews at approximately 1:20 a.m. ET, according to a State Department official.

Former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva are on board with some of their family members as well as State Department personnel.

The flight is expected to last about three hours and will land in San Antonio, Texas. Following their arrival, the three Americans will be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center to undergo medical evaluation and care, a US official told CNN.

CNN earlier reported the evaluations are typical for wrongfully detained Americans who return home, including Brittney Griner.

At least seven Russian oppositions were released as a part of the historic prisoner exchange on Thursday.

Here’s what we know about some of them:

Vadim Krasikov, 58

Vadim Konoshchenok, 48:

Vladislav Klyushin, 43:

Roman Valeryevich Seleznev, 40:

Artem Dultsev (age unknown)

Read more about who was included in the prisoner swap.