Welcome to Lead, the lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper and we start with

the breaking news in our world lead right now detained Americans

Evan Gershovic and Paul Wielen are just hours away from landing in the United States

where the president and vice president will greet them as they walk off the

plane and back onto American soil.

Their freedom, the result of the largest swap of prisoners since the Cold War, 24 people

in seven countries, the dramatic exchange unfolding on a tarmac in Turkey today.

You take a look at this image of six planes from the countries involved in the deal,

lined up next to one another, ready to trade in some cases innocence for a convicted murderer.

President Biden met with the families of the released American hostages

before addressing the country in this momentous deal.

The deal that made this possible was the feat of diplomacy and

friendship. Friendship. Multiple countries helped get this done.

Everybody stepped up. Poland stepped up. Slovenia stepped up, Poland stepped up,

Slovenia stepped up, Turkey stepped up, and it matters to have relationships.

That feat of diplomacy marks the end of a nightmare that's lasted for more than five years for former US

marine Paul Wielen and more than a year for American Wall Street Journal

reporter Evan Gerskovich. American Russian journalist Alsu Kermacheva and

Russian activist Vladimir Karamazza are also on their way to the United States.

While in return, Russia got what one U.S. official described as its quote, biggest fish, former FSB Colonel and Russian assassin, Vadim Krasagov, who was serving a life

sentence in Germany for murdering someone in broad daylight.

In addition, Moscow got back several others accused of spying or cybercrime. Some of those

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