Members of the press greeted Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday, following their release in a major prisoner exchange between Russia and the West.

Footage shows Gershkovich and Kurmasheva being greeted upon arrival at the airbase.

Gershkovich was arrested in Russia in March 2023 and received a 16-year sentence in a strict regime penal colony on espionage charges. Alsu Kurmasheva was convicted of disseminating false information about the Russian military and was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in July 2022.

The two were included in a significant prisoner exchange between Moscow and five Western countries announced on Thursday which saw the release of 26 detainees to their respective nations. Others exchanged include former US Marine Paul Whelan, arrested in December 2020 and sentenced to 16 years for espionage in June 2020, as well as American green card holder and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza who returned home to Germany.

The President of the United States Joe Biden confirmed the prisoner exchange on Thursday during a national address from the Oval Office, where he also hosted the families of some of the released prisoners. Whelan, Gershkovich, and Kurmasheva were freed from Russian prisons and travelled to Ankara before flying back to a US airbase.

On Thursday, twenty-six people including 24 adults and two minors were released in the most significant prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War. This exchange saw 16 prisoners held in Russia and 10 detainees, including two minors, in the US, Norway, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia set free.