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Just before midnight on Thursday evening, a plane touched down in the US and several Americans got to embrace their families, after they were freed in a historic prisoner swap deal with the Russian Federation.
It is quite simply the largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, and five other citizens from allied nations were released by the Russians in return for the release of 8 Russian prisoners held in Germany, the US, or elsewhere.
In addition to the 8 captives from the West, the Biden administration also negotiated the release of 8 Russian political dissidents or activists who were jailed in their own country.
The airport runway at Andrews Air force Base was a scene of tears and joy as Kurmasheva rushed into the arms of her husband and children, and Gershkovich lifted his mother off her feet. Whelan, who had been wrongfully imprisoned in Russia for six years, disembarked first, saluted his Commander-in-Chief, who, after some conversation, removed his lapel pin and affixed it to the Marine’s jacket.
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CNN described the negotiations as “swift”, once Russian officials became more interested when the years-long bargaining over imprisoned Americans was unexpectedly sweetened, courtesy of German Chancellor Olav Schultz.
Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov, would be released from a German prison, after being found guilty of assassinating a dissident in Berlin.
Besides Germany, the swap also depended on cooperation from Slovenia, Turkey, Poland, Norway, and Russian ally Belarus, a chain of agreement Biden described as a “feat of diplomacy.”
Biden summed it up for reporters on the tarmac, “To me, this is about the essence of who we are as a country.”
“How can you not be proud to be American at a moment like that?” remarked Tom Nichols, a Conservative professor at the US Naval War College.
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