Hostage Diplomacy

Washington and Moscow hatch a deal to swap each other's prisoners- over the heads of the countries actually holding the Russian ones

On August 1, 2024, following nearly four years of American humilation in Kabul, Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, the Biden Administration pulled off perhaps the most successful diplomatic coup since it took office.  For nearly six months, representatives of the American and Russian governments, implored by the families of imprisoned American citizens Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, hashed out an old-school prisoner exchange that revived memories of the first cold war.   The ultimate list of beneficiaries of the agreement proved to be highly comprehensive, the most discussed of which were Whelan and Gershkovich.  Also released from Russia were five German citizens and nine Russian dissidents, including three from the Navalny network formerly led by the slain Alexey Navalny. These released prisoners are now safe in Germany, where Navalny’s opposition movement is headquartered.  In exchange for these victims of the Russian government, Moscow, as is always the case, received a typical assortment of spooks, crooks, and spies, most notably Vadim Krasikov, a hitman hired by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to assassinate a Chechen separatist in Berlin in 2019.  Despite the criticism of this exchange, there is no underestimating the its magnitude on multiple fronts, one obvious but the other more profound.

Paul Whelan, a Canadian-born ex-Marine living in Michigan, had spent much of the previous decade before his arrest in Moscow in 2018 as a global security director for multiple American companies. This work entailed frequent visits to Russia and culminated in charges of espionage.  Evan Gershkovich, the New Jersey-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, had been working as a journalist in the ever-more dangerous Moscow market since 2016, ultimately being hired by the Wall Street Journal in January 2022, shortly before Putin ordered his tanks across the Ukrainian border.  While tirelessly working to provide honest coverage from such a hostile environment as Russia, Gershkovich was arrested by the notorious Wagner Group in March 2023.  In my opinion, Whelan’s checkered past, which included a dishonorable discharge from the Marines in 2008, and the vagueness of his job descriptions signifies to me a high likelihood that Whelan was probably engaged in some sort of espionage.  On the other hand, Gershkovich, described by his friends as a committed journalist dedicated to uncovering the truth, was certainly the victim of diplomatic hostage extortion by an increasingly paranoid and militaristic Russian government.  The fact that he is now safe with his family on American soil is certainly cause for celebration for all Americans.

Somewhere no longer safe for any American citizen to visit at all is, of course, Russia.  In case you didn’t know this already, Gershkovich’s arrest on flimsy charges should be a Tsar Bomba-sized red flag against Americans visiting Russia ever again.  Unless your name is Steven Seagal, any American, German, British, or like-minded country’s citizen who decides to enter Russia is now a potential target for arrest by the Russian security services to be employed as ransom in future dealings between the Kremlin and Western countries.  As for yours truly, my highly informative and comprehensive visit to St Petersburg back in 2014, along with the extreme danger for American citizens, means I am in no rush to return to Russia anytime soon.

While in America we were celebrating the return of our citizens Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich to the safety of their families, the implications for our allies in Europe were more somber.   While Russian prisoners were released from five NATO countries- the United States, Germany, Poland, Norway, and Slovenia, the deal was essentially negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Moscow with minimal to nonexistent German, Polish, Norwegian, or Slovenian input.   Such an arrangement naturally revives the legacy of the dozens of bilateral agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union that neither superpower’s allies in NATO nor the Warsaw Pact played any part in facilitating.  Reports have emerged how the Biden Administration, after months of arm-twisting, effectively forced German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to agree to Krasikov’s deportation to Russia, where he returned to a hero’s welcome.  In both Germany and especially Poland, the criticism for the prisoner swap has been harsh, with a former Polish interior minister excoriating the Polish government for deporting a Russian spy back to Russia while receiving absolutely nothing in return.  Likewise, German opposition officials have admitted the obvious- the agreement will encourage the Russian government to double down on hostage diplomacy.

While both Washington and Moscow celebrated the return of their citizens, the complete humiliation of European countries has been laid bare for the whole world to see.  So why were they left out?  Europe’s weakness and decline are an indisputable reality everyone agrees upon, including this author.  Decades of Russian strategic thinking, shaped by the legacy of their defeat of Nazi Germany and the 20th century Cold War, has led the Russian elite to deem their nation as a strategic equal of the United States.  On the other hand, European NATO countries are mere pawns and puppets of the United States- hence Russia’s preference for bilateral diplomacy.  Faced with these Russian accusations of vassalage, Europe doesn’t even try to deny them.  Rather, even the Europeans themselves admit their strategic dependence on the United States, a dependence no doubt exacerbated by the continent’s irreversible decline.  In more blunt terms, without Washington’s security guarantee, the war-averse Europe would stand no chance against a nuclear-armed superpower with a colossal arms industry and a comprehensively militaristic culture.

In turn, Europe’s dependence and decline are why Europe can no longer swaggeringly defy Washington's wishes as they did during the Iraq War.  Furthermore, the United States, after years of asking both politely and aggressively pleading for Europe to take charge of its own security against a bitter and militaristic Russia, has the unfortunate obligation for the foreseeable future to subsidize the old continent’s security lest the militarily-superior Russians use force against more countries beyond Ukraine.  On a happier note, I must emphasize again that on balance, I see the prisoner swap between the United States and Russia as a positive development.  After all, as an American citizen who has visited Russia with no real desire to return, I have no fear of being arrested and taken hostage by the Russian government.  Also, I must emphasize the US government is always obliged to uphold the interests of its own citizens unjustly locked up abroad over the complaints of allies.  In a world becoming ever-more confused by the day, this American will most certainly accept this silver lining.