More Americans are ending up in Russian prisons — and their prospects for release are unclear

A reporter reports from a city in the Ural Mountains. A company security chief traveled to Moscow to attend a wedding. A dual national returns home to Tatarstan to visit family.

All are U.S. citizens and have been jailed in Russia on varying degrees of charges.

Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington hit Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining chips, but Russian officials insist they all violated the law.

Some have been exchanged for Russians held in U.S. custody, while others have less clear prospects of being released through exchanges.

“It seems that Moscow itself has cut off most of the communication channels and doesn’t know how to properly restore them without losing face, so they are trying to use hostages. … At least that’s what it seems,” former Russian diplomat Boris Boris Bondarev says he will resign after Moscow invades Ukraine in 2022.

Who are the Americans detained?

Friday marks one year since the arrest of 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is awaiting trial in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison on espionage charges.

Gershkovich was detained while reporting from the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the United States. Russian authorities have not disclosed any details of the charges or evidence to support them, and neither he, his employer nor the U.S. government have disclosed details of the charges. All deny it.

Another American accused of espionage is Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. He was arrested in Russia in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later. Whelan, who said he traveled to Moscow to attend a friend’s wedding, maintains his innocence and says the charges against him are fabricated.

The U.S. government has declared that Gershkovich and Whelan were wrongfully detained and has advocated for their release.

Others detained include Travis Leake, a musician who has lived in Russia for many years and was arrested last year on drug-related charges; Marc Fogel, a teacher in Moscow, Also sentenced to 14 years in prison on drug charges; and dual nationals Alsu Kurmasheva and Ksenia Khavana.

Kurmasheva, the Prague-based editor of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Tatar-Bashkir service, was arrested in October 2023 in her hometown of Kazan, where she had traveled to visit her ailing elderly mother . She faces multiple charges, including failing to self-report as a “foreign agent” and spreading false information about the military.

Los Angeles-based Kavanagh returned to Russia to visit family and was arrested for treason. According to Pervy Otdel, a human rights organization that specializes in treason cases, the charges stem from a $51 donation to a US charity that helps Ukraine.

Path to freedom through prisoner exchange

The exact number of Americans imprisoned in Russia is unclear, but the cases of Gershkovich and Whelan have received the most attention.

The U.S. government acted unusually quickly when the State Department determined that Gershkovich was wrongly detained less than two weeks after his arrest. The designation applies only to a small group of Americans imprisoned in foreign countries.

Prisoners who receive this classification have their cases assigned to the State Department’s special envoy for hostage affairs, who attempts to negotiate their release, and must meet certain criteria – including establishing that the sole reason for the arrest is that the person is a U.S. national or acts as a U.S. citizens are part of an effort to influence U.S. policy or force concessions from the government.

The United States and Russia have had some success in high-profile prisoner exchange negotiations in recent years, reaching a deal in 2022 to free WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine Corps veteran Trey Trevor Reed. Both Griner and Reed were found to have been wrongfully detained.

In exchange for them, Moscow got Viktor Bout, an arms dealer serving a 25-year sentence in the United States, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot serving a 20-year sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking. .

It is unclear whether any negotiations are underway to swap other Americans held in Russia, such as Leake, Fogel, Kurmasheva or Kavanagh.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told The Associated Press shortly after her arrest that he hoped the U.S. government would use “all available avenues and means” to get her released, including labeling her a wrongful detainee.

Does Moscow want the West to control Russians?

In December, the U.S. State Department said it had made a major offer to secure the release of Gershkovich and Whelan, but Russia rejected the offer.

Officials did not describe the offer, but Russia is said to be seeking the release of Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing 40-year-old Georgian Zelimkhan “Tonic” Kangosh in Berlin. Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany in 2021. A citizen of Chechen origin who fought against Russian forces in Chechnya and later sought asylum in Germany.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked this year about the release of Gershkovic, he appeared to mention Krasikov, referring to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for “fighting banditry.” man who allegedly killed Russian soldiers during separatist fighting in Chechnya.

Beyond this hint, Russian officials have remained silent on the talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly said that while “certain contacts” about the swap are continuing, “these contacts must be conducted in absolute silence.”

It is unclear whether Moscow would be interested in other Russians held by the West.

When Russia agreed to release Griner but not Whelan, a senior Biden administration official lamented to reporters that Russia “rejected every suggestion we made to release him.”

Roger Carstens, the presidential envoy for hostage affairs, told The Associated Press in a January interview that the situation, in which one detainee was released but the other was not release) has put heavy pressure on U.S. government officials.

“We are not going to win unless we have people walking off American planes onto the tarmac and into the arms of their loved ones,” Carstens said.

Historically, “when relations (between countries) When it’s better, communication seems smoother.”

She points to prisoner exchanges between the Soviet Union and Chile during the détente period in the 1970s, and with the United States and Germany in the 1980s, soon after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Prominent Soviet dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky and Natan Sharansky were released during these exchanges.

Ultimately, however, the fate of those imprisoned in Russia “lies solely in Putin’s hands,” Khrushcheva said.

Carstens echoed her sentiments.

“These are difficult cases. The reality is that Russia holds the keys to the cell,” he told The Associated Press in a statement this week. “The United States continues to have conversations with allies and partners about steps we can take to ensure Evan and Paul’s freedom. These efforts are sensitive and do not help Evan and Paul negotiate openly. The United States will continue to work until we can Evan and Paul took it home.”