The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free, officials said.

The trade followed years of secretive back-channel negotiations despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The sprawling deal, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps negotiated between Russia and the U.S. in the last two years, but the first to require significant concessions from other countries, was heralded by President Joe Biden as a diplomatic achievement in the final months of his administration. But the release of Americans has come at a price: Russia has secured the freedom of its own nationals convicted of serious crimes in the West by trading them for journalists, dissidents and other Westerners convicted and sentenced in a highly politicized legal system on charges the U.S. considers bogus.

Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. vehemently denied and called baseless; Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018 also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

The dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, 11 political prisoners being held in Russia, including associates of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and a German national arrested in Belarus.

The Russian side got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services.

Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents who were jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy, and Poland also sent back a man it detained.

Thursday’s swap of 24 prisoners surpassed a deal involving 14 people that was struck in 2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the U.S. as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians living in their homeland, including Sergei Skripal, a double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018 were nearly killed by nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.

Lawmakers took to social media on Thursday to share their thoughts on the prisoner swap involving the United States and Russia, with some pointing to other U.S. citizens incarcerated abroad that need to be freed.

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a Pennsylvania Republican, wrote the trade is a good start, but must be expanded to include a resident of his home state.

“Any potential prisoner swap must include Pennsylvania’s Marc Fogel, along with Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich,” Rep. Reschenthaler wrote. “He’s a PA teacher with severe health issues who has been unjustly imprisoned in a Russian prison for three years. As negotiations are ongoing, he must be included.”

Co-signing the call was Rep. Dan Meuser, another Pennsylvania Republican.

“Although we’re happy to hear of the impending release of Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, I join my friend Guy Reschenthaler in calling for any prisoner swap to also include wrongfully imprisoned Pennsylvanian, Marc Fogel,” he added.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, said he was thrilled by the trade, but called for the U.S. to remember other American prisoners held abroad who have received less attention.

“We should also not forget those Americans who may still be held in Russia, like Marc Fogel and Ksenia Karelina, as well as those held in other countries, including Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and David Lin who are held in China, and Ryan Corbett who is held in Afghanistan. We must get all of them home to their families too,” McCaul said in a statement.

Associated Press contributed to this article.