Getty Images“It is best to remain silent on this matter.”
When asked to comment on a possible East-West prisoner exchange, Russian officials chose this phrase. Something we’ve been hearing for months.
This is the way the Kremlin likes it: “hostage diplomacy” where deals are done behind closed doors and away from the media spotlight. Intelligence agencies talk to intelligence agencies; government to government.
Until Moscow gets what — or rather who — it wants.
But despite the “silence”, there is a signal. Something is moving.
Last February, in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin discussed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershko, who was arrested in Russia and charged with espionage. Vicky.
“I do not rule out the possibility of Mr. Gershkovic returning to his homeland,” Putin said. “We hope the U.S. Secret Service will consider how it can contribute to the goals our Secret Service pursues.”
It was a very public and unsubtle hint that Moscow was willing to make a deal.
The Kremlin leader did not name anyone. But he made it clear who Russia wanted in return: Vadim Krasikov, a suspected Russian agent who is serving a life sentence for murder — not in the United States, but in Germany.
Days later, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a remote Arctic penal colony. Before Navalny’s death, there were rumors linking Navalny, Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, who were imprisoned in Russia, with Germany’s Vadim Krasi Negotiations for a Kob exchange have been ongoing.
Have German authorities negotiated a prisoner exchange?
ReutersFast forward to June. Evan Gershkovich’s closed-door espionage trial – dismissed as a “scam” by the Wall Street Journal and the US government – finally begins in Yekaterinburg. The case was quickly adjourned to mid-August.
But last month, the court unexpectedly brought forward the second hearing by more than three weeks. After a lightning-fast three-day trial, Evan Gershkovich was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony.
On the same day, American-Russian journalist Arsu Kurmasheva was sentenced to six and a half years in prison by a Kazan court. Her trial lasted only two days.
Someone was clearly in a hurry. This is the strongest indication yet that a deal is done and a swap is possible. Russian authorities generally view convictions as a prerequisite for any prisoner exchange.
There were more signals earlier this week, with reports that a group of prominent Russian political prisoners had been moved from penal colonies or detention centers.
Speculation is mounting. Could these dissidents be part of a larger prisoner exchange than originally anticipated?
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyNews out of Belarus: The country’s leader Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to pardon Rico Krieger, a German citizen sentenced to death for terrorism and other crimes. Could he be part of an exchange?
This is the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.
Western governments will welcome the release of foreigners and the freedom of some of Russia’s most prominent political prisoners.
Moscow will celebrate the return of its agents.
Both sides will claim it’s a good deal.
But if Russia believes “hostage diplomacy” is effective, as it has been in the past, the worry is that this is unlikely to be the last time prisoners here – both foreign and Russian – are used as bargaining chips.
