Prisoner swap does not affect stance on Ukraine

The swap of 26 prisoners – Russian prisoners in the United States, Norway, Slovenia, Spain and American prisoners in Russia and a German in Belarus – on Thursday marked the largest such exchange since the end of the Cold War in 1989.

The profiles of the prisoners exchanged from both sides is interesting. There is the German radio reporter in Belarus, the American reporter for The Wall Street Journal facing a prison sentence of 16 years, the Russian couple in a Spanish prison, whose daughter and son were separated from the parents and who did not know they were Russian until the plane took off for Moscow from Ankara and Russia President Vladimir Putin greeted them in Spanish because they knew no Russian.

There were also Russians, political dissidents, who were thrown out of the country by President Putin as part of the swap. When they landed in Germany, the expelled Russians said that they want to get back to Russia and fight for their rights. There is both cheer and grimness in the prisoner exchange drama.

The security experts on both sides—American and Russian – were clear that this exchange does not mean any diplomatic thaw between the two countries, and that this prisoner swap was an isolated episode, and it does not change the tone of the relationship. If there was a glimmer of hope that this exchange could be a prelude to talks on the ongoing Ukraine war, the two sides rejected the possibility.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “These are different areas of work and completely different situations. Of course, this work that was carried out along the FSB-CIA line, it, of course required very complex negotiations, the compilation very complex, filigree chains, the involvement of a number of countries, but if we talk about Ukraine and more complex international problems, then this is a completely different matter. There are completely different principles there  – the principles of the national interests of our country, the interests of national security.”

There is the interesting aspect that while all the American prisoners were in Russia, excepting the German radio broadcaster in Belarus, all the Russian prisoners were not in the United States. They were in many European countries. It shows that the Americans had to convince the European governments to release the Russians in their prisons so that they could get their own people out of Russian prisons. It also means that the US and the Europeans are working together in nabbing Russians who they suspect of spying and carrying out other subversive acts. Russia is not just grappling with the US but Europe as well.

The prisoner swap also shows that the Russians and Americans are willing to deal with each other on matters concerning them – the Americans concerned about Americans in Russian prisons and the Russians worried about Russians in American and European prisons. And it implies that the Russians in European prisons can only be released through American exertion and influence. And this could mean that the Russians in the European prisons were in the prisons because of American requests to the European governments.

This is a rigmarole in the best sense of the term, a maze, a labyrinth. The Americans and Russians, whatever their inflexible stance over Ukraine, will not hesitate to deal with each other on what can be termed bilateral issues. The mediatory role played by Turkey remains commendable because Ankara is a both a member of the Western military alliance of NATO, and it is also a close friend of Moscow. Moscow and President Putin are unlikely to trust a European country to carry out the sensitive negotiations.