Details of 'historic spy swap' revealed

The US-Russia prisoner swap talks lasted more than a year, and initially the parties planned to carry out a smaller deal. Alexei Navalny was indeed included in it. The New York Times (NYT) shares details about the "historic spy swap".

For more than a year, the United States and Russia conducted a dialogue in various ways. For example, the parties exchanged secret messages that were obtained by special couriers. Some proposals were transmitted directly through intelligence officers. In early July, CIA Chief William Burns called FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov. After their talks, CIA officers and Russian intelligence officers organized a meeting in Turkey. There, they worked out the final details of the exchange agreement.

According to Western officials familiar with the process, the turning point in the negotiations came on June 25. Then, CIA and Russian intelligence officers met in one of the capitals of the Middle East. Until that moment, as the publication writes, the parties had not reached full agreement, although they had proposed several options for a deal. Among the options considered was the exchange of Alexei Navalny for Vadim Krasikov, a killer sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany.

The unofficial deal involved businessman Roman Abramovich as a middleman, who claimed that Vladimir Putin had agreed to swap the Russian opposition figure. However, Navalny died in prison before the US formally considered including his name on the swap list.

US President Joe Biden took part in the talks. On July 21, Biden, who had contracted the coronavirus, called Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob. They discussed one of the last points of the prisoner agreement. In December 2022, Anna and Artem Dultsev were arrested in Slovenia, accused of espionage. They returned to Russia with their children as part of a prisoner exchange. The NYT clarifies that it was their arrest in Slovenia that proved critical to the prisoner exchange.

The publication writes that at the time, the US was trying to secure the release of former Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Russia back in 2018 on espionage charges. There was no one in American prisons for exchange who could interest Moscow. After the arrest of the Dultsevs, the West had Russian prisoners who could be exchanged for Whelan. In January 2023, CIA officers held secret talks with Russian intelligence officers to offer to exchange Whelan for the Dultsevs. Russia, according to the NYT, rejected the offer, but made it clear that it was ready to continue negotiations if the US offered more.

State Department Special Representative James Rubin and the department’s chief hostage negotiator Roger Carstens have come up with a new plan for the swap. Instead of swapping one for one or two for one, they propose expanding the lists to include many more people on both sides. The idea appealed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who, according to the NYT, carries a card with the names of more than 70 Americans in prison abroad at all times. Blinken won Biden’s approval in March 2023.

However, the course of the negotiations changed when, at the end of the same month, Evan Gershkovich, a journalist for the largest American publication, The Wall Street Journal, was detained in Russia. After his arrest, it became obvious to the American authorities that Russia was looking for ways to free Krasikov. Vladimir Putin considers Krasikov his friend, writes NYT. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, albeit with difficulty, approved the release of the Russian killer on June 7, and on June 25, the most important negotiations took place, where everything was decided.

As a result of the exchange, eight Russians who had been imprisoned in the United States and several European countries were released . In addition to the Dultsevs and Krasikov, Roman Seleznev and Vladislav Klyushin, convicted of cyber fraud in the United States, and Vadim Konoshchenko, convicted of evading sanctions and smuggling American dual-use technologies for the Russian defense industry, were released. Russia extradited to Western countries, in particular, prominent opposition politicians: Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Andrei Pivovarov.

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