The prospect of former President Donald Trump winning a second term in office reportedly played an important part in the prisoner swap with Russia that saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others freed.

One of the German officials involved in the negotiations with Russia indicated that he leveraged the possibility of Trump becoming president again to press Moscow to release the prisoners, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Wolff’s team saw an opening when their Russian counterparts said they wanted to wrap up the deal before the U.S. election in November. Some officials deduced that the Russians were either concerned about an unpredictable Donald Trump coming again to the presidency, or they feared that Scholz would no longer be willing to help a president who rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Germany.

“We then decided to push it to the limit,” a senior official involved in the talks said.

Then, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia in early spring, the Germans revealed for the first time that they were ready to release Krasikov, but warned the Russians that the price would be much higher than previously discussed, the official said. They lifted the main obstacle that had bogged down the talks: the one-for-one rule, stipulating that Krasikov could be exchanged for one other prisoner.

“We made it clear: We are ready but only if the price is right,” said a senior official involved.

The negotiations had dragged for so long that Russia started jailing Germans. By the talks’ final stages, about 30 German citizens were detained by Russia and its satellite, Belarus. Initially, Scholz refused to engage in hostage diplomacy, but after one German was sentenced to death in Belarus, the strategy became untenable. He instructed his envoys to put four Germans on the release list.

Trump declared earlier this year that he would be successful in freeing Gershkovich if he were reelected.

"The reporter should be released, and he will be released," Trump said during an interview with TIME. "I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released."

In another interview, Trump praised the outcome but indicated that he could have done better with the negotiations.

In an interview with FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump called the deal that brought home Gershkovich and others a "win" for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"As usual, it was a win for Putin or any other country that deals with us, but we got somebody back, so I'm never going to be challenging that," he told Bartiromo.

"It wouldn't have happened with us. We would have gotten him back. We wouldn't have had to pay anything. We wouldn't have had to let some of the great killers of the world go, because that's what's happened, as you know. And the deal is very complex because it just came out. So nobody understands the deal yet, and they make it complex so you can't understand how bad the deal is for us."

Gershkovich’s release came about as part of a significant prisoner exchange that involves up to 30 individuals, RedState’s Streiff reported.

Russia has released Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan in a major prisoner swap. Both Gershkovich and Whelan have been imprisoned on espionage charges. Whelan has been in Russian custody since January 2019, and Gershkovich since March 2023. Whelan is serving a 20-year sentence, and Gershkovich was recently sentenced to 16 years; see Russia Sentences Wall Street Journal Reporter to 16 Years Amid a Heightened Fear of Treason and Espionage and Will Paul Whelan Ever See Freedom?

The deal involves at least 24 prisoners and perhaps as many as 30 prisoners. If those numbers are true, this may be the largest prisoner swap since the return of US PWs from Vietnam.

Russia has been known for kidnapping citizens of the United States and other countries to use them as bargaining chips to free Russians imprisoned in these countries.