February 10, 1962: In a Cold War Hollywood-style trade on the Glienicke Bridge between Berlin and Potsdam, two men — an American and a Soviet — walked in opposite directions across what decades later would come to be known as the “Bridge of Berlin.” spies.”
They were Francis Gary Powers, the American pilot of a spy plane shot down over the USSR, and Soviet KGB Colonel Rudolph Abel, who had served five years in the US on espionage charges.
More than half a century later, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, certainly knows the value of prisoner exchanges. In April, his administration released former US Marine Trevor Reed, who was convicted of endangering a Russian police officer after a drunken fight, in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was accused of conspiracy to traffic cocaine to the US had been found guilty.
In relations with Russia, as with Iran and North Korea, American citizens who are not spies have been arrested and held as political “hostages,” bargaining chips to be traded for citizens those countries want back.
In 2018, Russian citizen Maria Butina was arrested in the US and accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia. Five months later, former US Marine Paul Whelan, who holds citizenship of the United States, Great Britain, Canada and the Republic of Ireland, was arrested in Moscow on espionage charges. He claims an FSB agent, whom he thought was a friend, attached a USB stick with confidential information to him.
Butina served her time and was released and deported back to Russia in 2019; Whelan is still locked up in a penal colony in a remote region of Russia. The US has officially declared him “unlawfully detained”. There has been no trade and Russia claims his detention was not political.
The latest case in Russia of an American woman deemed “unlawfully detained” by the US is WNBA all-star Brittney Griner. The two-time Olympic champion, who has been held in a Russian detention center outside Moscow since February, faces drug smuggling charges and a possible 10-year prison sentence. Customs officials said they found vape cartridges containing hash oil in their luggage.
Her arrest has drawn tremendous attention in the United States. Sports figures, women’s rights groups, LGBT organizations and Griner’s wife Cherelle have all gathered to lobby the Biden administration for a deal with Moscow. The Biden administration says it is working hard to free her and Whelan.
President Joe Biden spoke to Griner’s wife and Whelan’s family on the phone and wrote Griner a letter that was delivered to her in Moscow. The United States’ leading private hostage negotiator, former New Mexico governor and diplomat Bill Richardson, is expected to travel to Russia in the coming weeks to discuss the possible release of Griner and Whelan. Richardson played a role in freeing Trevor Reed.
But on Tuesday, in a statement, Whelan’s family described how third-party representatives like Richardson can “both support and hinder a possible resolution of a detainee’s case.”
Such representatives “are unable to offer or agree to the concessions that are at the heart of the ongoing detention,” the Whelan family said in a statement to CNN, adding that “they may not be aware of this as they operating outside of government from talks already underway between the US government and the hostage nation.”
The Prisoner Swap Calculation
With her star quality, Griner would be a valuable asset if Putin desired a prisoner swap, which Moscow has hinted could be a possibility. However, the Kremlin insists that she is not a hostage and that the case will be handled strictly under Russian criminal law.
However, reporting in the Russian media paints a more nuanced picture. From the Kremlin – dry, “regular” statements from Russian officials. On Russian state-controlled television – short video of Griner being led into the courtroom, guarded by armed police, handcuffed to a courtroom security officer, forcing the 6-foot-tall basketball star into an awkward position. With only 0.25% of all criminal cases being acquittals, the visual image is likely to create a sense of guilt among Russian viewers.
Russian drug laws are stricter than US laws and are enforced against Russian citizens. However, Griner faces charges of large-scale drug trafficking, which carries a possible 10-year sentence, despite carrying only 0.702 grams of hash oil – less than 0.0248 ounces – which her lawyers said was for personal use. Cannabis is illegal in Russia.
For Biden, approving a prisoner swap represents a challenging diplomatic, political, and human calculus. Griner, a black gay American woman, is being tried on drug charges in a now hostile country. Russia has a law prohibiting the dissemination of “gay propaganda” and there is widespread hostility towards homosexuals in Russian society. Russian prisons and penal colonies are notorious for their harsh conditions.
Even the current prison conditions are difficult for a person over 1.80 m tall. Griner’s wife says Brittney is being transported to court in a “very, very, very tiny cage” — a five-hour drive. In a letter to Biden, Griner wrote, “I’m afraid I might be here forever.”
Whelan has also complained to his family that the barracks at his correctional facility are unheated and he is frequently awakened throughout the night.
And yet hostage-taking experts warn that trading a tiny amount of hash oil in an arrested basketball star could result in more Americans being wrongfully arrested and used as hostages in future barter deals.
If there were a prisoner swap for Griner – and maybe Whelan – who would Russia want back? Evidence from Moscow suggests it could be Viktor Bout, a notorious international arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in a US prison and dubbed the “dealer of death” for waging civil wars in Africa and bloody conflicts in Africa Latin America and the Middle East has fueled.
Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, is suspected of having close ties to Russian intelligence. In 2002, in an interview I conducted with him at CNN’s Moscow bureau, he described himself simply as a “businessman.”
Under normal circumstances, prisoner swaps are thorny and sensitive issues that are usually best negotiated away from the glare of the cameras. The Brittney Griner case is far from calm and Russia-US relations are extremely strained amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov condemned what he called the “hype” surrounding the case, criticizing Biden’s letter to Griner, saying, “This kind of correspondence doesn’t help.”
Last week, Griner pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, telling the judge, “But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law.” This admission could help solve the case, legal experts believe.
But this highly politicized trial is being decided amidst a crisis in diplomatic relations, in camera glare and public outcry.
Russian officials say a prisoner swap would only take place after the verdict was announced. But this time there is no “Bridge of Spies,” and the United States and Russia are locked in a new Cold War.
