Two years, secret talks, high stakes: The long road to prisoners deal

Vice-President Kamala Harris then held two important meetings to help keep a potential swap on track, a senior administration official told the BBC.

She attended the Munich Security Conference in mid-February where she stressed the importance of releasing Krasikov to Chancellor Scholz.

She also met the prime minister of Slovenia, where two Russian prisoners identified by the US as being of a high priority to Moscow were being held. They were both released on Thursday.

Then in the spring, the new deal which no longer included Mr Navalny took shape in the White House. And in June, Berlin agreed to exchange Krasikov.

“For you, I will do this,” Mr Scholz told President Biden, according to Mr Sullivan.

The deal was submitted to Russia.

Moscow responded several weeks ago, in mid-July, accepting the terms of the agreement and the release of those on the list held in Russian jails.

But as the negotiations were reaching their final stages, domestic politics intruded, with Mr Biden coming under immense pressure from within his own Democratic Party to end his bid for re-election in November after a poor debate performance.

According to Mr Sullivan, barely an hour before Mr Biden announced on 21July he would not seek re-election, he was on a call with his Slovenian counterpart finalising the prisoner swap.

As with any high-stakes prisoner swap, the deal was not guaranteed even as the aircraft were lined up and the prisoners’ routes home finalised.

“We held our breath and crossed our fingers until just a couple of hours ago,” Mr Sullivan said on Thursday afternoon.

President Biden later posted a picture of the released Americans together on a plane headed for US soil, along with a short caption. “[They] are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families.”