Evan Gershkovich and fellow freed Americans welcomed back to US by Biden and Harris after Russia prisoner swap

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed the Americans freed from Russia back to US soil late on Thursday after the biggest 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.

Biden was the first to greet each of the three as they stepped down off the plane, followed by Harris, and then there were scenes of joyful reunion 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.

Gershkovich followed, and then Kurmasheva. Biden said “ happy birthday“ to the radio journalist’s daughter, who ran up to her mother crying, saying: “I love you so much, I can’t believe you’re here.” Her husband added: “This is real.”

The prisoner swap took place following years of complex negotiations and secret meetings involving several countries including the US, Russia and Germany, which 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 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