Friday Briefing

President Biden embracing Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as Kamala Harris looks on.Credit…Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

‘Their brutal ordeal is over’

President Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice president, welcomed home Americans who had been released from Russian custody, including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland last night. “Their brutal ordeal is over, and they’re free,” Biden said earlier in the day.

The complex deal for their release — which came together after elaborate negotiations involving seven countries — was a diplomatic victory for Biden, who has long pledged to bring imprisoned Americans home. Sixteen people in total were released by Russia, and in exchange, eight people were freed by the West.

In a statement, Gershkovich’s family thanked Biden and other officials for helping to secure his release after 16 months in a Russian prison. At the air base, after stepping off the plane and talking with Biden and Harris, Gershkovich hugged a family member and lifted her into the air.

Analysis: The linchpin of the deal for Russia was the release of the assassin Vadim Krasikov from a German prison, which President Vladimir Putin had long sought. “Russia passed a law in 2006 which formally permitted the extrajudicial killing abroad of those Moscow accuses of extremism and terrorism,” Neil MacFarquhar, a reporter for The Times who has covered the Kremlin for years, said. “In the eyes of the Kremlin, Krasikov’s assassination in Berlin of a Chechen separatist leader whom Russia labeled a terrorist was legitimate.”

Details: The Americans freed were Gershkovich, 32; Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, a Russian American editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who was also arrested last year; and Paul Whelan, 54, a former Marine arrested in 2018.

In Russia: The deal was a triumph of a different sort for Putin, who can use it to highlight his loyalty to Russian agents who get arrested abroad.