A Trade
It was like a scene from the Cold War. A business jet from the US pulled onto one side of the tarmac. A similar jet from Russia landed and pulled up several yards away. The doors open, at the same time, and two huddled groups emerge from the planes and approach each other. One person from each group steps to the other, and the groups head back to their planes. The US and Russia exchanged prisoners on the runway in Abu Dhabi.
Thursday the United States of America freed a Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. He is a friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and was serving his eleventh year of a twenty-five year prison sentence at the US Federal prison in Marion, Illinois. He was traded for Brittney Griner, the Women’s National Basketball Association superstar, born in Texas and two-time American Olympic Gold Medalist. Griner was arrested in Moscow Airport last February, accused of bringing in marijuana oil vape cartridges, legal in the US but not in Russia.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian Penal Colony, and was just beginning to serve her sentence.
Celebrate
It’s a moment of some celebration. An American, unjustly held and dramatically over sentenced, is out of a Russian Penal Colony and back safely in Texas. It’s also a moment of concern. “The Merchant of Death”, Viktor Bout, is free to resume his life of arms sales to the highest bidder, even to both sides of the same conflict, to gain more profit.
And Paul Whelan, an American (and British, Irish and Canadian – he has passports for all four countries), a former US Marine and businessman, is still in Russian prison; four years into a fifteen year sentence for espionage. The American negotiators hoped that they could create an “equivalence” between Bout and Whelan, a “my Bishop for your Bishop” kind of trade, then add Griner in. But the Russians regarded Whelan is far more than the equivalence of Bout. So Griner was the best the US team could do.
There are a few things to point out about all of this.
The Dance
First, it takes two to tango. The US might think their deal for Griner and Whalen was great, but unless the Russian’s had the will to get Bout back, they were just dancing by themselves. Regardless of Bout’s “Merchant of Death” label and his close ties to Vladimir Putin; he obviously wasn’t of great enough value to spring for the “two for one” deal. The Russians went to a great deal of trouble to charge Whelan with espionage, of being a spy. They want a spy back for him.
According to sources, the United States doesn’t have a Russian spy to trade. There are Americans who spied for Russia in the US, but they aren’t likely trade fodder. There is someone the Russians want: Vadim Krasikov, a Colonel in Russian Intelligence convicted of murder in Germany. But the US doesn’t have him: the Germans do, and aren’t interested in trading for him for an American.
Reaction
So the deal was Griner for Bout, a superstar basketball player who may have had vape cartridges (or may have been set up), for a heinous arms dealer responsible for many deaths. The American right-wing was brutal in their criticism. The deal, they said, showed Biden’s weakness; willing to trade away a bishop to get what they consider a pawn. Brittany Griner is gay, a Black woman, who kneeled during the National Anthem in protest of the murder of George Floyd at WNBA games. So she made an easy target for the right-wing media.
The Biden administration was deeply sympathetic to the Whalen family’s disappointment, and vowed to continue to work to find a way to bring him home. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken also made it clear: there was never a deal that would include Whalen, even in a one for one for Bout. Whalen was never “on the table”.
It takes two to tango. And the Russians aren’t dancing for Whalen.
