This prisoner swap is a triumph – but it could be a sign of something even more profound

There’s no doubt of the significance of the return of Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Paul Whelan and others, writes Mary Dejevsky – an even more optimistic interpretation might see a signal from Vladimir Putin to the West that Russia is open to serious talks on the war in Ukraine

(Reuters)

It is, by a long way, the most elaborate and comprehensive East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War, involving 24 individuals from at least half a dozen countries.

Those freed include the US journalist, Evan Gershkovich; the UK-Russian opposition campaigner, Vladimir Kara-Murza; and the former US marine, Paul Whelan. And it comes at a time when relations between Russia and the West could hardly be more frigid or present a greater risk to European – if not global – peace.

In historical terms, such an apparent contradiction should not raise too many eyebrows. Such swaps have a habit of coming at some of the lowest points in international relations. Now, as then, this exchange offers not just a chink of light in the almost unrelieved gloom, but proof that behind the facade of total estrangement, some channels have remained open.

Of all those exchanged as part of this deal, the greatest prize for the United States (and the greatest loss, as a bargaining chip) to the Russians may be Whelan, serving 16 years for espionage. He is a quadruple national – US, Canada, UK and Irish – although it is the US that has led calls for his release, and he has been passed over in previous swaps.

Gershkovich was detained in March last year and sentenced last month to 16 years in prison for spying – charges he, his employer The Wall Street Journal, and the state department all fiercely deny.

Kara-Murza had begun a 25-year sentence on treason and other charges after returning to Russia in 2022. Also included is a US-Russian citizen, Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist at the US-funded Radio Liberty, who had been detained during a visit to relatives and sentenced to six and a half years for disseminating false information (on the Russia-Ukraine war).

The detention of at least some of those released by Russia reflects the sharp deterioration in relations between the West and Russia that followed its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Gershkovich was the first accredited US journalist to be held by Russia for spying since Soviet times. It has also to be seen at least in part as a manoeuvre – to store up bargaining chips for the bigger diplomatic game.

The negotiations have, however, clearly been both complex and difficult. This particular swap – albeit not on the scale that has now transpired – had been mooted since the end of last year, when Vladimir Putin revealed that Russian and US officials were in contact over a process that could lead to freedom for Gershkovich. He gave a little more detail a few weeks later in his TV interview with the US journalist Tucker Carlson.

Whatever was being negotiated, though, appeared to suffer a setback after the sudden death of the Russian opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, at an Arctic prison camp in February. It subsequently emerged that a deal was being hatched under which Navalny was to be released into exile – probably in Germany – as part of a wider exchange.

If, indeed, Navalny was a key part of that deal, his death would have left all having to start the bargaining again pretty much from scratch. It was only last month, around the time of Gershkovich’s sentencing, that Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Russia and the US were – still, or again – in contact over a prisoner swap.

Perhaps the greatest significance of the current agreement, aside from its scale, is that it is the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after which most Western countries cut off all but the most basic diplomatic relations with Russia. Before that, there had been periodic exchanges, the latest in December 2022, when Russia finally secured the release of the arms dealer, Viktor Bout, in return for freeing the US basketball star, Brittney Griner, who had been imprisoned on drug charges.

Any such swap deals cannot but raise misgivings, however. Even as they welcome unconditionally the return of Gershkovich, Kara-Murza and others, many will admit that the whole process leaves something of a bitter taste, and not just because it smacks of state-sponsored hostage-taking – a despicable ploy that the West, in the shape of the US and the Huawei executive held in Canada, is quite capable of engaging in, too.

There are other reasons for misgivings, too. There is often an imbalance between the Westerners – largely held for petty or political offences – and the Russian beneficiaries, who may have been convicted for serious offences (such as Vadim Krasikov, for a cold-blooded murder). Alas, of such compromises are swaps made.

The individuals themselves have also paid a price. While Gershkovich and Kara-Murza have gained their freedom, their lives have been changed. Gershkovich will not, for the foreseeable future, be able to use his Russia expertise where it is most needed. And Kara-Murza, who (like Navalny) returned voluntarily to Russia in the belief that his work was most effective there, will have to continue his work from abroad and is in poor health from his time in prison,

Given that the negotiations on this agreement were so long and so difficult, it is reasonable to ask why they finally succeeded. On the US side, there may have been an element of presidential desk clearing in advance of the election in November. Having a high-profile journalist in Russian hands would not be a good look for the White House (even though the Democrats have a new candidate now).

It is not clear what the UK might have conceded in exchange for the return of Kara-Murza, but a change of government can sometimes bring new flexibility to talks – on both sides.

Then there are the Olympics. For all Russia’s pique about the ban on its athletes competing in Paris under their own flag, could there still be something of the “Olympic truce” here? Or is it rather that Putin had an eye on a small slice of Western media attention?

Only a few weeks before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, he ordered the release into exile of Russia’s once richest oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after a decade in prison. It was done, Putin said, on humanitarian grounds, but the attendant publicity was not nothing.

An even more optimistic interpretation might see a signal from Putin to the West that Russia is open to serious talks on the war in Ukraine. And a still more optimistic gloss would be that the US wants to send a similar signal back. Ukraine has sent and received a flurry of envoys in recent weeks that just could presage some movement in diplomacy that has been deadlocked for so long.

In short, the freedom for so many of the West’s unjustly held prisoners in Russia is excellent news in itself, but if it is a harbinger of something more, that could be even better.