Famous East-West prisoner swaps
   
Aug 1, 2024: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich (left), Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva (centre), and U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan (right), among 16 prisoners swapped for eight Russians in biggest exchange since end of Cold War

Dec 2022: U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner (below left), arrested 10 months earlier at Moscow airport for possession of cannabis, released in exchange for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout (right) – so-called Merchant of Death – in high-stakes swap amid worsening relations over Ukraine
    
Jul 2010: Ten Russian sleeper agents living in U.S. under false pretences, exchanged for four Russian prisoners, including Sergei Skripal (below) – accused of being double agent for Britain. Skripal survives assassination attempt by poisoning in England in 2018

Jun 1985: Marian Zacharski (below), Poland’s most famous spy, swapped alongside three other Eastern Bloc agents for 23 Westerners, jailed for espionage in Warsaw Pact countries, in
largest Cold War spy swap
   
Feb 1962: KGB colonel Rudolf Abel (below left), arrested in U.S. in 1957, freed in exchange for Francis Gary Powers (right), American pilot of U2 spy plane shot down over Soviet Union in 1960. Exchange takes place on Glienicke Bridge, also known as Bridge of Spies, scene of several high-profile swaps
     

Sources: Reuters, AP, BBC 
Pictures: Newscom, Getty Images, FBI 
© GRAPHIC NEWS