President Joe Biden has confirmed that former US Marine Paul Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Russian-British activist Vladimir Karamurzha, who holds a US green card, will also return to the United States.
The deal has been in the works for more than 18 months and appears to hinge on Moscow demanding the return of Vadim Krasikov.
A Russian agent serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder of a Kremlin opponent in a Berlin park is now returning to Russia.
Senior U.S. administration officials described him as a “bad guy” and said he was “clearly the biggest fish the Russians wanted to get back.”
Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was also included in a possible swap deal, but the proposal fell through when he died in February.
Navalny's widow, Yulia, welcomed the exchange, describing it as “delightful.”
“Every single political prisoner released is a huge victory and something to celebrate,” she wrote in a post on X.
“Putin should not take anyone hostage, should not be tortured or imprisoned to death.”
The White House views the deal as the most complex in U.S.-Russian history.
Mr Biden called it a “feat of diplomacy,” adding that many countries “engaged in difficult and complex negotiations at my request, and I thank them personally.”
He added that those released had been convicted in “show trials” and sentenced to “long prison terms without any justification whatsoever”.
Mr Biden said he spoke by phone in the Oval Office with three Americans and relatives of Kara-Murza.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he welcomed the release of Kara-Murza and Whelan, who are both British citizens.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said in a statement that it had pardoned 13 prisoners in a bid to ensure the return of Russians held in prisons abroad.
There was no explanation as to why the names of the two released Germans, Patrick Schauvel and Hermann Moises, were not included in the list of those eligible for amnesty.
