Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan were being released Thursday as part of a major prisoner swap, according to multiple media reports.
The two men, who were jailed in Russia on espionage charges, are on their way out of Russia, Bloomberg News reported.
The swap reportedly will include Russian prisoners held by the U.S. and its allies being returned to their native country.
The Associated Press citied an unidentified person familiar with the matter in reporting that a massive prisoner swap was underway. That source did not specify which prisoners were involved.
The Moscow Times reported Wednesday that Gershkovich might be among 20 to 30 political prisoners and journalists held by Russia that will be part of an imminent exchange with the U.S. and Germany.
The Kremlin on Thursday declined to comment on media reports that a prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States was set to begin imminently.
Signs of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on one side and the United States, Germany, Slovenia, and Britain on the other multiplied on Thursday as over a half-dozen Russian dissidents and activists disappeared from their prisons.
"I still do not give any comments," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a regular press briefing.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S.
On July 19, he was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison on charges that his employer and the U.S. government have rejected as fabricated.
Whelan, 54 and from Michigan, was arrested in 2018 in Moscow, where he was attending a friend's wedding. He was convicted two years later of espionage, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He maintains his innocence, saying the charges were fabricated.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.