The biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War era took place earlier on Thursday, with 24 people released in total, the US has confirmed, writes BBC.

The White House said 16 prisoners had been freed. Among them is Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. In return, eight Russian prisoners have been released from prisons in the US, Norway, Germany, Poland and Slovenia, including individuals accused of intelligence activities. The children of two of the prisoners also returned to Russia. The swap took place on the runway at Ankara airport earlier on Thursday.

President Joe Biden has confirmed US Marine veteran Paul Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Russian-British activist Vladimir Kara-Murza - who has a US green card - are also on their way back to the US.

The deal had been more than 18 months in the making and appears to have hinged on Moscow’s demand for the return of Vadim Krasikov. He was serving a life sentence in Germany for carrying out an assassination in a Berlin park, and is now back in Russia. Senior US administration officials described him as a “bad dude” and said he was “certainly the biggest fish the Russians wanted back”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials, along with a guard of honour, met the returning Russians at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.

The view in the White House is that this deal is the most complex exchange in US and Russian history. Mr Biden called it a “feat of diplomacy”, adding that many countries had “joined difficult, complex negotiations at my request and I personally thank them”. He added that those released had been convicted in “show trials” and sentenced to “long prison terms with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever”.