Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navaz as away. On the news hour tonight.

Their brutal ordeal is over. They're free.

High profile Americans held in Russia are released as part of the biggest East-West

prisoner swap since the Cold War.

Emergency crews struggle to contain rapidly spreading wildfires

burning through large swaths of the Western US.

And former President Donald Trump doubles down on the remarks he made about Vice President

Kamala Harris at a convention for black journalists. Welcome to the news hour. The waiting, the worrying, and the dreadful wondering are over tonight for three Americans

who were jailed in Russia and their families.

Journalists Evan Gerskovich, Al-Sou Kermacheva, and former U.S. Marine Paul Wheelen are heading home tonight after an extraordinary

deal struck among the U.S. its allies and the Russian government.

A fourth person, a U.S. green card holder, Vladimir Karamuza, was also released.

Nick Schifran starts our coverage.

In 80 years of US Russia and US Soviet spy swaps today's was the most complex.

Two dozen people on one Ankara Turkey, Tarmac, Russian dissidents, convicted Russian spies,

and detained Americans who will be coming home and spoke to their family

members in the Oval Office on the day President Biden called historic diplomacy.

This is an incredible relief for all the family members gathered here.

It's relief to the friends and colleagues all across the country who've been praying for this day for a long time.

Among those released 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich,

the first journalist since the Cold War sentenced in a Russian court for spying.

I've got a medical condition that prohibits this.

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