Prisoner Swap with Russia “Offers a Possible Pathway” to Peace in Ukraine, Says Katrina vanden Heuvel

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re spending the rest of the hour looking at the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Included in the swap are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former marine Paul Whelan and Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who landed in the United States late Thursday night after being freed from Russian custody. It was just about midnight when President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris greeted them at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as their family members rushed to embrace them. Biden spoke earlier in the day surrounded by the released prisoners’ relatives.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today we’re bringing home Paul, Evan, Alsu, Vladimir — three American citizens, one American green card holder. All four have been imprisoned unjustly in Russia. … Russian authorities arrested them, convicted them in show trials and sentenced them to long prison terms with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever. … And now their brutal ordeal is over. …

This deal would not have been made possible without our allies — Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey. They all stepped up, and they stood with us. They stood with us. And they made bold and brave decisions for these prisoners being held in their countries, who were justifiably being held, and provided logistical support to get the Americans home. So, for anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter.

AMY GOODMAN: Russian British dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has a U.S. green card, was also released in the swap but was not on the U.S. flight with Gershovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva.

This comes just weeks after a Russian court convicted Evan Gershkovich of espionage, sentencing him to 16 years in prison, a move denounced by press freedom groups. Paul Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on spying charges, which he denied.

In total, 16 political prisoners — Russian human rights activists, journalists and others — were freed by Russia in the exchange. Five were German nationals, seven Russian, including human rights defender Oleg Orlov, who served as a leading member of Memorial, one of the oldest human rights organizations in Russia. Memorial, which has been outlawed by Putin, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Some of the freed activists had links with Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, among them Ksenia Fadeyeva, who was the head of Navalny’s office in Tomsk, a university town in Siberia.

In return, eight Russians were released from prisons in the U.S., Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland, including Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian assassin who was in German custody after the 2019 killing of a Chechen dissident in Berlin in broad daylight. Thursday’s massive exchange came after about two years of complicated negotiations with the U.S., Russia and other European countries, including Belarus and Germany, which ultimately agreed to Moscow’s key demand — to free Krasikov.

The U.S. had pushed to include Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the swap, before his death in an Arctic prison in February. National security adviser Jake Sullivan addressed this in a press briefing yesterday.

JAKE SULLIVAN: We had been working with our partners on a deal that would have included Alexei Navalny. And unfortunately, he died. In fact, on the very day that he died, I saw Evan’s parents, and I told them that the president was determined to get this done even in light of that tragic news, and that we were going to work day and night to get to this day. And so, that work continued over the course of the past few months and culminated in today.

AMY GOODMAN: Alexei Navalny’s closest ally, Leonid Volkov, said on social media, “Today we’re reveling in the release of political prisoners, Putin’s hostages who were suffering in Putin’s gulag. But it still will be joy with tears in our eyes. The Navalny swap has taken place, but without Navalny. It hurts a lot,” he said.

For more, we’re joined here in New York by Katrina vanden Heuvel, Russia expert, publisher of The Nation magazine.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Katrina. If you can talk about the significance of this swap and who was released on both sides?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: It’s an extraordinary swap, as you know, Amy, the complexity of it. It reminds of the Cold War, but it is more complex in many ways. I think what was so stunning, of course, the human drama, the human pain that is relieved, but the fact that there have been masterful negotiations behind the scenes, the back-channel diplomacy that had to occur to make this day happen. And we so often hear of working with allies to pass on weapons or to fight wars, but in this case it was to start a dialogue to bring out the political prisoners, the others. And I think that is hopeful, that we’re going to see maybe more of a pathway to dialogue toward ending the war.

But I also think that what’s interesting is the politics of it. Kamala Harris, the vice president, clearly played a role in an important moment, bilateral talks with the German leader, Olaf Scholz, to release Krasikov. And Krasikov, as you mentioned, Amy, was the pivot for Putin. And he has been called an assassin. And he did it — it’s Vladimir Putin’s loyalty to such people in order to continue recruiting for extrajudicial actions. But Krasikov is convicted of killing a Chechen, Chechen terrorist, Chechen war fighter. And for Putin, the Chechen War remains this stain, that he continues to try to exercise, we saw, with Tajikistan and the terrorist acts just a few months ago.

But I come away primarily listening to a Jake Sullivan who broke down, from maybe the stress of the last two years. To keep this quiet has always been key for back-channel diplomacy. When I was in Moscow in 1986, Amy, there was the picking up of Nick Daniloff of U.S. News & World Report. He was in prison for only 15 days, and he was exchanged. So, we’ve seen these kinds of exchanges going way back, but the complexity of this one and what it may mean is very important.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you can talk about — I mean, Evan Gershkovich, now everyone has heard his name, The Wall Street Journal reporter. And apparently, when he had to sign documents at the end when he was being released, he wrote that he wanted to interview Russian President Putin.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: I’m not allowed to say a bad word, but I would say he’s a bad—. He’s a — you know, that, it takes real courage and temerity. But, you know, he’s from a Russian émigré family, and he grew up in New Jersey. But his mother, who he lifted off the tarmac, was so fearful, because she remembered what Lefortovo — that is, the prison Evan Gershkovich was in for too long — what that meant in the Stalin years. People didn’t come out. But, fortunately, Evan Gershkovich is here. May he get the interview with Putin.

And may I point out that Mr. Trump has all along been belligerently aggressive about how only would Putin give the hostages to him, Trump; he could do it in a day. Well, it turns out — and this is commentary inside Moscow — that maybe the Putin administration regime prefers Harris’s more steadfast policies. They’re kind of sick of this Trump lack of discipline, to be kind. So, I found that, I think, and Russian observers have found that interesting.

I will say that there are others. Vladimir Kara-Murza, whose father was a major television personality inside the Soviet Union, he is, as you know, Amy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, a fierce oppositionist figure. And I think it demands quite a bit. Of course he should be released. He should never have been in prison. But to release him to the West is, of course, to empower him in his oppositionist activities and continuing to write as he has against the Putin regime.

The sadness of Navalny, I have to say, there was a similar case, Amy. Your listeners may remember Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch who was imprisoned for too long. He was released around the time he took up a hunger strike, I believe. Kremlin wanted him to leave. And I think with Navalny, Navalny who received almost 30% in his run for Moscow’s mayor in 2013, he returned to his home country. But I’m not sure that the commentary, which quickly impugns Putin for killing him — now, bringing him to that Arctic prison is part of a death sentence, perhaps — but there was real action — and I heard this from independent Russians close to the scene — to release Navalny. And we now hear how that was in play.

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s very interesting that the U.S. negotiated, with other Western countries, the release of Russian human rights activists, not Russian Americans.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about the significance of that, like the head of Memorial?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Well, Mr. Orlov, who’s 71, had left the country and then came back. And I think there’s an understanding of the dissidents and the role dissidents play and the need to save and protect them. I will say Mr. Orlov — and there were several people who were involved with Navalny’s organization, the anti-corruption unit. So I think that was a sign of — it’s not the Navalny swap, but it has elements of it.

I will say that there are still political prisoners in Russia. And Boris Kagarlitsky, who has been on your program, Amy, is someone who has been arrested and convicted for six-and-a-half years for simple opposition to the war in Ukraine. Lula and other international leaders have signed a letter of protest in solidarity. And if you go to TheNation.com and put in “Boris Kagarlitsky,” you can see what you can do to assist in release not just of Boris, but there are others who are part of his institute for labor and social movements.

AMY GOODMAN: Christian Mihr, the deputy general secretary of Amnesty International in Germany, said the prisoner exchange left a “bitter taste.” In a statement, the group warned Russian President Putin, quote, “is clearly instrumentalizing the law in order to use political prisoners as pawns,” and said that on one side there were, quote, “a murderer and other criminals who have been convicted in a fair trial,” and on the other, “people who have just exercised their right to free speech. The prisoner exchange is therefore a step towards broadening impunity,” Mihr said. If you can respond to that and also talk about the other Russians who were released to Russia, in addition to this assassin of the Chechen in broad daylight in Berlin?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Well, let me just begin with that, if I might, Amy. There was a couple who I believe lived in South America. And their children were traveling with them to Moscow. They didn’t speak — the children didn’t speak Russian and didn’t know their parents were Russians. This is sort of like The Americans. But, I mean, you have low-level spies. You have low-level hucksters, scammers. The most serious criminal is Krasikov, assassination. So, the others were more kind of plain, ordinary.

But I do think this issue of hostage — of impugning those who undertake hostage negotiations, Amy, there’s a history — you know, Jesse Jackson taking soldiers out of Syria; Bill Richardson, the back channel around the Cuban Five. I think that better than to war, war, war is to have these negotiations, masterful diplomacy, as President Biden and others have said, that do not bring about moral equivalency but do bring about release of those loved ones. And no one exchanged money. There’s no transaction. And I think we’re sturdy enough and steady enough and resilient enough as a country to understand that hostage release is not transactional, and also that negotiations and diplomacy are not about capitulation. They’re about improving the conditions of a world which is too militarized and at war. So, I do think in the mix of people — and there have been — I think there are 16 on the U.S. side. And think about the negotiations that had to occur with the other countries. That is a measure of collaboration that I think does merit the word allies doing the right thing.

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s exactly the point that Biden made yesterday, clearly making a reference to Trump, saying this took allies, especially the German chancellor agreeing to release the assassin. That took allies and not alienating allies. But I wanted to go, as you talk about war, to the issue of the Ukraine war. Do you think that this prisoner swap, the agreement at the highest levels of the United States, Germany, Russia, with Vladimir Putin, is — could lead to some kind of negotiation to the end of the war in Ukraine?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: I do, Amy. As I referred at the top, I do think it offers a possible pathway. And the timing is such that Ukraine — the polling, independent Ukrainian polling, is showing that more and more Ukrainians can contemplate a negotiated end to this war. Of course, there are questions about ceding land and other things, but Ukraine is war weary, as is Russia. And the men being mobilized, the draft age is now 60. In both countries, they’re conscripting prisoners. I think Zelensky, in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer about a week ago, spoke of the possibility of negotiations. I think the security for Ukraine can be negotiated apart from NATO, the issue which has so roiled the situation. But I think the time has come. Ukraine is a third of its size. It has very few men remaining, very little materiel. And the money — the World Bank estimates reconstruction of Ukraine at this moment could be about a trillion dollars. I think only diplomacy, a word that is often overused but is real, is the resolution to this cruel, horrific, World War I kind of war with 21st century weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: Katrina, what about the significance of the timing of this swap? They’ve been working on it apparently for several years, as you said. This is right before the Democratic convention. You have the release of Americans. The whole issue of —

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: It’s something that Reagan —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: The Republicans often — remember Reagan and the hostage? How can we forget the Iranian hostage crisis? And we’ve learned more about how that was ginned up to support Reagan’s record. But I do think the timing — and this has been commented on in Moscow, Amy, that the timing suggests that they’re fed up with Trump, and I think that there’s more interest in a more stable foreign policy, though there’s also hope that Kamala Harris and her chief national security adviser, Philip Gordon, is less hawkish than a Victoria Nuland or those who have been too involved in the Ukraine situation. So, I do think there’s a timing element, and I do think Mr. Trump has been upended in this sense. And I do think the Russiagate stuff about how Putin put Trump in the White House is increasingly discredited. But that is the commentary inside Moscow.

AMY GOODMAN: And when it comes to the Ukraine war, Ukraine has received its first collection of F-16 combat jets, after a very long wait.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: But, Amy, they’re training them. The men are still being — I believe mostly men, though women are in the army, but they’re being trained. And it’s a long process, and that soon will come another muddy, horrific winter, made worse by Russia’s bombing of the grid. And Russia should not be let off. I mean, there has to be some measure of even — I wouldn’t use the word, but reparations in rebuilding Ukraine. But again, the war weariness is deep in both countries. Though Russia is better equipped to handle a long war, people are not. Many people are so war weary.

AMY GOODMAN: So, are you saying you think that Putin thinks he might work better with Katrina — he might work better with Kamala Harris than with Donald Trump?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: I do. I think Russia does not like unhinged, unstable, undisciplined. And, you know, Mr. Trump has brought in people like John Bolton, who are eternal Cold Warriors. There’s a new generation — I’m not sure Putin’s part of it, but there is a new generation that, for many, the Cold War is ancient history. And there needs to be a dialogue. And, in fact, the defense secretary [inaudible] — 

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: So, there needs to be an ongoing dialogue for security reasons, nuclear reasons. So this could be setting a pathway. For two years, there was dialogue. You’re not going to just cut it off at the pass. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Russia expert and publisher of The Nation magazine. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.