Paul Whelan spent two weeks vacationing in Moscow five years ago, which culminated in a Russian labor camp. The American is going to be thousands of miles away from home for another Christmas in detention.
According to the US government, he was wrongfully arrested and charged with espionage.
However, Paul Whelan told the BBC in a rare phone interview from his isolated prison that he felt “abandoned” by his own nation, which had set up two prisoner swaps with Russia in the past year.
“Serious betrayal” was how he described the decision to leave him behind.
Captive gathering
As US journalist Evan Gershkovich got ready to spend his first New Year behind bars on the same accusation, Mr. Whelan made his remarks.
Both his government and the Wall Street Journal, his newspaper, openly state that Russia’s allegations against him are untrue. As a certified journalist, he was detained in March while carrying out his duties.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a US-Russian journalist, was arrested in October while visiting relatives. She may spend as much as 15 years in prison for her actions, which include disseminating “fake news” on the Russian military.
It appears that the Kremlin is gathering American hostages.
Paul Whelan has spent the most time behind bars. Since then, we’ve spoken numerous times—first in court and then from behind bars.
According to a US government official, Mr. Whelan’s issue is being “continually discussed” with allies and “multiple proposals” have been made to the Russians. The statement said, “Intensive activity does not pass a week.”
But I’ve never heard Mr. Whelan sound so negative or so irritated in all the years that we’ve spoken.
Refused
“I am aware that the US has several suggestions, but the Russians are not interested in them. In order to see what sticks, they toss spaghetti against the wall and then back and forth.
“The issue is that while they’re doing this, my life is evaporating. Five years have passed.”
Mr. Whelan claims that following his trial, Russia intended to return him home in exchange for Viktor Bout, the arms dealer who was found guilty. But then-US President Donald Trump “kept saying no.”
After two years, Brittney Griner, an American basketball player who had entered a guilty plea for owning vape cannisters containing cannabis oil, replaced Viktor Bout.
Paul Whelan was abandoned.
“It’s extremely stressful knowing that I could have been home years ago,” he stated to me. “Knowing that they have committed these errors is very upsetting. I feel like they’ve abandoned me here.”
Additionally, Mr. Whelan is a citizen of the UK, Ireland, and Canada, and he has had visits from the ambassadors of these four nations.
However, I was informed that the UK Foreign Office was “providing consular assistance to a British citizen” when I enquired about their efforts to get him out.
It said the same thing five years prior.
The tale of Evan
Sensitive negotiation specifics will not be confirmed by the US State Department. However, Secretary Blinken was described as “personally committed” to obtaining Mr. Whelan’s release by the US government spokesperson.
The US “will not cease these efforts” to bring its citizens home, despite Russia having turned down “several significant offers,” according to the statement.
Paul Whelan is not the only one who depends on that.
Since the end of the Cold War, no Western journalist had been accused of espionage in Moscow before Evan Gershkovich’s arrest in March.
“Evan is a journalist, not a spy. That should go without saying, adds Evan’s friend Polina Ivanova, a Financial Times correspondent in Moscow.
Reporting from Moscow at the same time initially involved the two. Now that he’s in jail, Polina works from overseas for safety, just like the majority of other correspondents covering Russia.
She talks about how Evan lost communication with his newspaper one “horrible” evening while on assignment in Moscow. He reappeared as a prisoner, facing espionage charges. “The cosmos just crumbles when a friend experiences that. It’s an extremely scary charge.
Every week, Polina and her pals spend hours going through the support letters that come from overseas. Then, in order to get past the censors at the Moscow jail where Evan is being kept by the FSB, they translate them into Russian.
They also translate novels and magazine articles. They can talk about a small stack Polina has on her shelf in her Berlin apartment, which she is reading concurrently. She’s attempting to lift both her own and her friend’s moods.
Prior to his detention, Evan covered Brittney Griner’s release from the last US-Russian prisoner exchange for Viktor Bout. Prior to that, a Russian narcotics trafficker was substituted for former US Marine Trevor Reed.
The journalist is aware of how this operates. He will be aware of Russia’s high demands for any deal, though.
And its conditions are becoming more stringent.
Paul Whelan told me that as part of any deal, Moscow now wants a convicted FSB hitman back from Germany.
Vadim Krasikov was charged with “state terror” by the judge at his Berlin trial for the murder he had committed in broad daylight in a park in the city center. The murderer received a life sentence in jail.
In our opinion, if Moscow is sincere, the US needs to include Germany in its conversations.
Washington, according to German politician Roderich Kiesewetter, does have a lot of influence over Berlin because the US provides Germany with “hints and advice” and intelligence that it is “very dependent” on.
However, Mr. Kiesewetter, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the parliament, is against any agreement.
“We cannot afford to give Russia a signal that they can commit crimes in other countries and then, after a diplomatic break of several years, get their murderers back,” he told me in the Bundestag.
Vladimir Putin emphasized last week that any agreement Russia made to bring the Americans back would need to be “mutually acceptable”. Struggling to sound like the sensible man he is not, he stated that the US needed to make a “appropriate decision.”
That may be an indication that the talks will get more serious.
It might not, though.
“I have no idea what the Kremlin thinks I just know that my best friend is in jail, and he shouldn’t be,” Polina Ivanova stated to me. “He should be home and should be working.”
Nor is Paul Whelan becoming enthusiastic.
He tells me there is black mold on the walls of his barracks and spends his days sewing work overalls and headgear in a prison factory. There was no heating and the temperature was -15C on the day we chatted.
He claims that since his imprisonment, his life has been “ruined”. In addition to losing his job, his house, and his freedom, he was recently beaten by another prisoner.
According to the US administration, he is “not forgotten”. However, the worst thing he fears is being left out of another swap.
“I have serious concerns. My case is being moved to the back of the line with every case. I feel like they’ve kind of forgotten about me. And it’s quite alarming at this particular point in time.”
Russia was the one that imprisoned him. But in order to get him home, Paul Whelan argues the US needs to exert more pressure.
“All the promises made have been empty.”