Vice President Kamala Harris said that she and President Biden had “never stopped fighting” for the release of wrongfully detained Americans like the ones who were released from Russian custody on Thursday.
Ms. Harris, who made the remarks after a campaign swing through Houston and after stopping at the memorial of Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, was seeking to establish her part in a monthslong negotiation that ultimately involved 24 prisoners from the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Russia.
The Americans involved in the swap included Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter; Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian American editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine arrested in 2018.
They had “shown incredible courage,” Ms. Harris said in brief remarks on the tarmac in Houston before flying back to Washington.
“Over many years, President Biden and I and our team have engaged in complex diplomatic negotiations to bring these wrongfully detained Americans home,” Ms. Harris said. “We never stopped fighting for their release. And today, in spite of all of their suffering, it gives me great comfort to know that their horrible ordeal is finally over.”
She added that she had spoken with Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in custody in February and whose release was under negotiation when he died. His death scrambled the negotiation, and the swap.
“As I told her,” Ms. Harris said, “the United States stands with all of those who are fighting for freedom in Russia.”
Ms. Harris said that securing the release of more people wrongfully held abroad “is my solemn commitment to my fellow Americans, which I will always honor.”
The vice president did not stop to take questions from reporters before boarding Air Force Two. Late Thursday evening, Ms. Harris was scheduled to meet the released Americans with President Biden at Joint Base Andrews.
For Mr. Biden, the main focus of the day was celebrating the release of the prisoners alongside their family members at the White House, and reminding Americans that the release of wrongfully detained citizens had been a focus of his presidency — 70 have been freed since he took office.
Still, with Ms. Harris now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Mr. Biden and his advisers made sure to point to Ms. Harris’s work as a partner in the effort.
“I would say they’ve learned from each other,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said of their relationship.
Ms. Harris’s aides have often cited her work at the Munich Security Conference as evidence of her growth in foreign policy. Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters on Thursday said that she had engaged with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, at the conference to talk about the release of prisoners.
Aware the United States had assessed there were two Russian nationals being held in Slovenia who could be key for a potential prisoner swap, Ms. Harris also told her team she wanted to meet with Prime Minister Robert Golob of Slovenia at the conference, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meetings.
On Feb. 16, Ms. Harris and her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, met with Mr. Golob to discuss releasing the two Russians in exchange for freeing the detained Americans, including Mr. Gershkovich, the official said. The next day, after her regular scheduled bilateral meeting with Mr. Scholz, Ms. Harris asked Mr. Scholz to stay behind for a more restricted meeting with fewer aides in attendance.
The two leaders, each with a staff member alongside them, discussed the potential prisoner exchange. Ms. Harris conveyed that crucial to securing the release of Americans would be releasing Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of murdering a Chechen former separatist fighter in Berlin in 2019 on orders of the Russian government.
Mr. Sullivan praised the vice president as “very much” a core member of “the team that helped make this happen.”
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