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The release of Western hostages held by Russia is a short-term success for the Biden administration, but it comes at a great cost: By exchanging Russian spies and criminals for wrongfully imprisoned Americans and dissidents, the deal risks encouraging Russia and other authoritarian regimes to take more hostages.
The scale of this prisoner exchange is large compared to recent exchanges. It is rare for such a transaction to involve so many individuals and governments. It involves at least 24 people and eight countries: Belarus, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, the United States, and Turkey, where the transaction took place.
As part of the deal, Russia agreed to the release of former Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who were imprisoned on bogus espionage charges in 2018 and 2023, respectively. Also released was Ars Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American citizen and Radio Free Europe journalist serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence for “spreading false information” about the Russian military.
Wall Street Journal calls for change in US policy towards hostage takers after Gershkovich’s release: ‘Pay a price’
Additionally, Moscow and Minsk released five German nationals who had been imprisoned on security-related charges. The Kremlin also released eight Russian dissidents, including prominent opposition leaders Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, the latter a U.S. green card holder and close aide to Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last February. The Kremlin rarely releases political opponents, giving the exchange even more historical importance.
American journalist Evan Gershkovich, a former prisoner held in Russia, arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on August 1, 2024, and was welcomed by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Brendan Smiarowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The price of the deal was high. In return, the US and its allies released a dangerous figure: Vadim Krasikov, an FSB hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of a Chechen defector in Berlin in 2019. Krasikov appears to be Moscow’s main target. Other Russians include four “illegal aliens” (spies posing as foreigners) jailed in Slovenia, Norway and Poland, and three held in the US on charges of cybercrime and smuggling US military goods.
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The White House is celebrating the exchange. “The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy,” President Joe Biden said. Unfortunately, the exchange could spark further hostage takings.
Putin’s push for a prisoner exchange is a calculated strategy to secure the release of his operatives while taking advantage of Western countries’ willingness to “swap” for the release of innocent hostages. To make matters worse, Biden has broken former Secretary of State George Shultz’s cardinal rule of hostage negotiations: never pay hostages. Shultz’s theory was that “the moment you pay hostages, you give people an incentive to take more hostages.”
The Biden administration concluded that this latest prisoner trafficking sets a dangerous precedent, erodes established international norms on hostage taking and could encourage Iran, terrorist organizations and others to adopt similar tactics based on Russia’s success.
Finally, the deal shows that Moscow has apparently learned the hostage-trading game with Washington: After the Trump administration refused to swap Whelan for Viktor Bout, “the Merchant of Death,” a notorious arms dealer with alleged ties to Russian military intelligence, the Kremlin arrested former Marine Trevor Reed.
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Moscow eventually traded Reid for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian drug smuggler convicted in the United States, in April 2022. Russia then traded Bout for Brittney Griner, a US basketball player who had been arrested on drug charges earlier that year, in December 2022. When the Biden campaign refused to exchange Krasikov for Whelan, the FSB took Gershkovich as a new hostage and ultimately secured Krasikov’s release under this new deal.
The White House’s recent hostage exchange is a clear incentive to encourage more hostage takings and tougher negotiations in any future hostage exchange negotiations. Not only is the cost of this latest exchange high, Biden has also pushed the possibility of further hostage negotiations up the agenda for the next president.
