Canadian-U.S. citizen Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich have been released from a Russian prison in an international swap deal, U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed Thursday. Russian-U.S. journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza were the other two prisoners also released to the U.S. in the exchange. The conclusion of his swift and secretive trial in the country's highly politicized legal system perhaps cleared the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington. Biden acknowledged that Germany made significant concessions to achieve the prisoner swap. The exchange was the biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War.
