Biden remarks after prisoners swap

The Cold War-style prisoner exchange that brought freedom for Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, and others locked up by President Putin’s regime, followed months of tense negotiations involving officials from Russia, the United States, Germany and Belarus.

At times, it seemed the complex talks would collapse, especially after the death in February of Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader whose release is believed to have been initially sought by US and German officials as part of any deal with Moscow.

The Kremlin’s main prize in the dramatic swap that unfolded on an airport runway in Ankara on Thursday was Vadim Krasikov, a colonel with Russia’s FSB security service.