The spectacular prisoner exchange between Russia and the West is reminiscent of the Cold War. But practices have changed. Moscow now practices “hostage diplomacy.”
President Vladimir Putin (right) greets the “Tiergarten murderer” Vadim Krasikov with a handshake at Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 airport.
Mikhail Voskresenskiy / Sputnik / Kr / EPA
This honor is very rare, even for the highest state guests. On Thursday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally appeared at the aircraft stairs at Moscow’s government airport Vnukovo-2 to welcome the ten Russians – including two underage children – who were released in the prisoner exchange with the West back home.
He gave the Berlin “Tiergarten murderer” Vadim Krasikov, whose membership in a special unit of the FSB secret service has now been confirmed by the Kremlin, a big hug. He thanked the returning spies, hackers and murderers for their service to the fatherland and literally rolled out the red carpet for them. Also present were their alleged bosses: the Minister of Defense and the heads of the domestic and foreign secret services.
Putin owed it to these people who served the country to receive them, said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday. This sign was not only for them personally, but for the entire caste of secret service agents. They now know that even if they are exposed after their crimes have been committed, they do not have to languish for years in foreign prisons. The president himself is concerned about them.
Exchange on the Glienicke Bridge
It is nothing new that states exchange spies and agents who are caught in the target country while carrying out their clandestine activities. The history of the Cold War is full of more or less spectacular prisoner exchanges. Individual locations such as the Glienicke Bridge on the former border between Potsdam in the GDR and the far west of Berlin have become emblematic of this. Even then, like was not always repaid with like. But what happened on Thursday at Ankara airport surpasses the dimensions of previous prisoner exchanges, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality.
This time, the eight Russian agents were faced with sixteen civilians, including seven political activists with exclusively Russian citizenship, two journalists and several dual citizens, most of whom were probably captured by the Russians by chance but with the authorities’ intention. None of those extradited from Russia to the West were spies, although several of them had been convicted as such and the state news agency Ria Novosti also accused the deported Russian opposition membersto have been connected to Western intelligence services.
There is little doubt that most of these foreigners and dual citizens among those released were deliberately arrested, charged and convicted with a view to exchanging them with Russian agents caught in the West. In Russia, this is called an “exchange fund.” The prisoner exchange at the end of 2022, in which, among others, the arms dealer Viktor Bout was exchanged for the American basketball player Brittney Griner, already had this aftertaste.
In times of war against Ukraine and ever-increasing repression of any statements and actions that deviate from the official line, it is even easier for the Russian regime to place innocent journalists, businessmen, travelers, and even schoolchildren under suspicion and accuse them of crimes. They thus become de facto hostages.
Increasing deportation of dissidents
The first spectacular prisoner exchange, which took place with the usual mix of absolutely discreet preparation and high-profile execution, dates back to 1962. At that time, the Soviet Union handed over the American pilot of a reconnaissance plane, Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Urals, for the Soviet “illegal” agent captured in the USA with the code name Rudolf Abel. Subsequently, spies were exchanged on several occasions, including those of the respective allies. A special case was the expatriation of the dissident Vladimir Bukowski in 1976, who was exchanged at Zurich airport for the Chilean communist Luis Corvalán.
The Soviet agent Rudolf Abel is brought to trial in New York in 1957.
Anthony Camerano / AP
In the 1970s, when repression against political dissidents had increased again, the Soviet Union had begun to hand over dissidents and political prisoners to the USA in return for the return of its agents. One of the largest such operations took place in 1979. Moscow deported five dissidents in exchange for the two Soviet spies Waldik Enger and Rudolf Schernyaev. In 1986, the political prisoner Anatoly Shcharansky, who had spent years in a penal camp and later made a political career in Israel as Natan Sharansky, was exchanged for a Soviet couple who had been exposed in the USA.
In the autumn of the same year, the dissident Yuri Orlov was part of an exchange for a Soviet agent. In this constellation, the procedure was closest to the current one: the American correspondent Nicholas Daniloff had been arrested shortly before on charges of espionage and was exchanged for Orlov before he was convicted. 37 years later, the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had now returned to the USA, became the next American journalist to end up in the “exchange fund” as an alleged spy.
Human material of authoritarian states
Thursday’s prisoner exchange shows that Russia is successful with its “hostage diplomacy.” It is not the only authoritarian country that has refined such practices in recent years. When Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese chief financial officer of Huawei, in Vancouver in 2018 at the request of the United States, two Canadians, Michael Kovrig, a political analyst, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur, were arrested in quick succession in China and held in solitary confinement for more than a thousand days. They were convicted in farcical trials – and released as soon as Canada refused to extradite Meng to the United States.
The success of this model, which the well-known Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulman compared to the behavior of terrorist groups, presents the West with a dilemma. What is actually the strength of the Western model, the importance of the individual and concern for his well-being, makes it vulnerable to the ruthlessness of dictatorships.
Putin may celebrate the return of his agents, but he is hardly concerned about the individuals. They too, like the “hostages” and the regime’s own citizens who oppose the regime, are human material for the benefit or detriment of the state. Unlike in previous cases, the Russian political prisoners who were taken directly from the penal camps were not handed over in fresh civilian clothes, but in the prisoner’s uniform that stigmatizes them. Official Russian pictures of their transfer in Ankara were not shown.
Blatant threats
Putin’s spokesman Peskov mockingly shouted after the political prisoners who had been deported abroad without being asked, saying that Russia hoped they would stay where they were now, as befits enemies. Former President Dmitri Medvedev even wrote that he would have preferred to see them perish in prison. If they were abroad, the best thing would be for them to enter a witness protection program – a blatant threat.
Peskov’s promise that Russia will continue to work for the return of Russian citizens still held in Western prisons also sounds like a threat. The “exchange fund” has been almost completely emptied by the largest prisoner exchange in decades. There are fears that it will soon be refilled. The suppression of dissidents and the restriction of social and political freedom continue unabated.
Evan Gershkovich hugs his colleague from the Wall Street Journal, Joe Parkinson.
Bryan Olin Dozier / Imago
