"Things like this are best done in silence."
This is the favorite phrase of Russian officials when we ask them to comment on a possible exchange of prisoners between the East and the West.
Words we hear for months.
The Kremlin likes these methods: reaching an agreement behind closed doors, "hostage diplomacy" away from the eyes of the media.
Intelligence services talk to intelligence services; governments with governments.
Until Moscow gets what - or rather, whom - it wants.
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But despite the "silence", there were signals. Something was happening.
In the interview to former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson in February, Vladimir Putin also spoke to Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia and charged with espionage.
"I do not rule out the possibility that Gershkovich could return to his homeland," Putin said at the time.
"We want the American secret services to think about how they can contribute to the achievement of the goals that our special forces are striving to achieve," Putin said.
It was a very public and not at all hidden hint: Moscow is open to reaching an agreement.
Putin did not say any names.
Ali made it very clear who Russia wanted in return: Vadim Krasikova, a suspected Russian agent serving a life sentence for murder - not in America, but in Germany.
A few days later, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a remote penal colony in the Arctic.
Before his death, there were rumors that there were talks about exchanging Navalny, Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia, for Vadim Krasikov.
Were the German authorities then brought into negotiations on the exchange of prisoners?
Navalny died in prison in February, before the first step towards an exchange in which he would also be involved took place.
Let's move on to June.
The closed-door trial of Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges, which both the Wall Street Journal and US authorities have dismissed as "false", has finally begun in Yekaterinburg.
Very quickly it was postponed to mid-August.
But last month, the court suddenly announced a second hearing, nearly three weeks early.
At the end of the trial, which proceeded at the speed of light, Geršković was sentenced to 16 years in a prison colony.
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On the same day, Alsu Kurmashova, an American journalist of Russian origin, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison before a court in Kazan.
This trial lasted only two days.
Someone was obviously in a hurry.
It was the biggest sign so far that an agreement had been reached, that an exchange was more than possible.
Russian authorities usually consider a verdict a prerequisite for any prisoner exchange.
Earlier this week, new signals emerged, with reports that a number of prominent Russian political prisoners had been transferred from prison colonies to detention centers.
There was more and more speculation.
Could these dissidents be part of a larger prisoner exchange than previously thought?
First came the news from Belarus: President Alexander Lukashenko agreed to pardon Rick Krieger, a German citizen sentenced to death on terrorism and other charges.
Could he be one of those exchanged?
Now we know.
This is the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.
Western governments welcomed the release of foreign nationals, as well as some of Russia's most famous political prisoners.
Moscow will celebrate the return of Russian agents.
Both sides will claim that the deal is good.
But if Russia concludes, as it has done in the past, that "hostage diplomacy" is successful, this will not be the last time that prisoners in this country - both foreign and Russian - are used as bargaining chips.
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