Breaking News! Massive Prisoner Swap, Americans Freed! #breakingnews #trendingnews #newsupdate

Prisoner swap with Russia frees Americans including Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

In one of the largest prisoner swaps between the United States, its allies and Russia since the end of the Cold War, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are among more than a dozen prisoners released by Russia in exchange for Russian prisoners held by the United States and countries throughout Europe, U.S. officials said Thursday.

In all, under the deal, 16 political prisoners, journalists and others, including five Germans, are being exchanged for eight Russians jailed in the U.S., Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland. Among the Russians is Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian state assassin in German custody, as well as three other Russians in U.S. custody.

President Biden said the swap deal was “a feat of diplomacy” and thanked allies who worked with the United States on the deal. “This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend on,” he said in a statement.

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“Not since the Cold War has there been a similar number of individuals exchanged in this way,” said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, adding the exchange was the “culmination of many rounds of complex painstaking negotiations over many, many months.” Later on Thursday, Sullivan said President Biden would seek to build on the success to try to free Marc Fogel, a U.S. citizen still held in Russia, and other Americans held in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Those returning to the U.S. from Russia include Gershkovich, Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who works for U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe, and Russian journalist and dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, a U.S. permanent resident.

American pilot Francis Gary Powers (far right) during his 1960 trial in Moscow. Powers was shot down while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. He was jailed for nearly two years before he was freed in a swap for a Soviet spy imprisoned in the U.S.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed appreciation to the Turkish government for "providing a location for the safe return of these individuals to the United States and Germany."