DISINFO: The West did not want the prisoner swap because it showed Russia’s good will
SUMMARY
The West did not want a prisoner exchange with Russia and had to put up with it, because one of the US and its allies’ stereotypes about Russia is that Putin is “not agreement-capable”. This exchange delivered a blow to these stereotypes and undermined all allegations about Russia being unfair. People in the West have a very short memory. They do not remember that Russia was strictly complying with the Minsk Agreements and trying to make the West comply with them as well. Moreover, Russia’s importance has strengthened throughout the world due to this exchange.
RESPONSE
A disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets about a prisoner swap on 1 August 2024, in which 16 Illegally arrested German and US citizens and Russian opposition figures were freed from Russian and Belarusian prisons in exchange for 8 Russian spies and convicted criminals, released from US, Germany and some other Western countries. Two children of a Russian spy couple were also returned to Moscow.
The claim that Western nations did not want to have their citizens freed is false. It took the US and its allies months of talks with Russia to complete the swap. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2023 demanded the immediate release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, one of those relased in the 1 August swap. “The deal that made this possible was a feat of diplomacy and friendship,” US President Joe Biden said about the prisoner swap. Together with Gershkovich, ex-US marine Paul Whelan, US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, German medic Rico Krieger and several Russian opposition figures were also among those released.
What Russia received in exchange for the illegally arrested Western citizens and Russian opposition figures were eight convicted spies. One of them is Vadim Krasikov, who killed a Georgian citizen in Berlin in 2019. Over the past few years, Russia has arrested and imprisoned several EU and US citizens for alleged crimes without any evidence or real guilt and used them as bargaining chips in prisoner swaps in order to receive its own criminals and spies. Former US marine from Texas Trevor Reed was arrested in the summer of 2019 on charges of assaulting a police officer while being driven by police to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. The US government has described him as unjustly detained. He was exchanged for a Russian pilot serving a 20-year US prison term for drug trafficking. US basketball player Brittney Griner was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. She was exchanged in December 2022 for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. US teacher Marc Fogel, 63, was arrested at an airport in August 2021 and charged with carrying a small amount of medical marijuana, which had been prescribed in the US. Fogel is still in a Russian prison.
Concerning the claim that Russia was strictly complying with the Minsk Agreements, its debunks are well documented in the EUvsDisinfo database.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that there is No evidence of the involvement of Russian state structures in the killing of Georgian citizen in Berlin and that Raman Pratasevich's case is similar to Viktor Bout's detention.