More Americans have been detained by foreign governments in recent years on charges the U.S. considers baseless or politicized than by terrorist or criminal gangs, according to assessments by U.S. government departments and non-government agencies.
John Bolton, former President Trump’s national security adviser, called Gershkovic’s arrest an “act of state terror” aimed at putting pressure on President Joe Biden . “It was a predictably targeted act of hostage-taking,” Bolton said.
Within hours of Wednesday’s arrest last week, some at the highest levels of the U.S. government denied the charges against him, called outright for his release and accused the Russian government of targeting Americans. Gershkovich was released, Biden told reporters on Friday.
“The Wall Street Journal demands the immediate release of our colleague, distinguished journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested while reporting from Russia,” the Journal said in a statement on Saturday. The statement said: “No journalist should be arrested just for doing their job.”
For Gershkovich, an operation that once could have taken weeks or even months has unfolded swiftly and under intense scrutiny. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday to express “grave concern” about Gershkovich’s arrest.
The Russian side has stated that it is acting in accordance with its own laws. The Russian foreign ministry said: “U.S. government officials and Western media are fueling the flames, apparently trying to garnish the case with political overtones, which is unacceptable.”
Russia’s first detention of an American journalist in nearly 40 years is reckless, according to current and former U.S. officials and other observers of the hostage case, especially since the arrest is accompanied by espionage charges and is taking place across the world The background of such cases in the world is increasing.
“There has clearly been a significant increase in the number of American hostage-takings and journalists’ hostages in general,” said former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, whose foundation is working with families of detained Americans to seek relief. These people were released.
According to statistics from The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a total of 54 U.S. citizens or permanent residents are believed to have been taken hostage or wrongfully detained in 15 countries, including rival countries such as Cuba and allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The foundation is named after an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by the Islamic State group in Syria in 2014.
While Russia is not the only country implicated in this phenomenon, it is a major power with which the United States competes for place in the international order and at the same time over personal lives.
The U.S. and Russia have held open talks for the release of three U.S. citizens since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year. In April 2022, former Marine Trevor Reed was released in a prisoner exchange. American women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested on drug charges just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was released in a prison exchange in December and flown home. Former Marine Paul Whelan was not released in either exchange after the United States and Russia failed to reach an agreement on his release.
Now, a new name has been brought into the mix of human and geopolitical considerations: Evan Gershkovich.
Such incidents have become so frequent that the United States has created an administrative mechanism to deal with them.
A 2020 law that establishes 11 criteria for what constitutes improper detention of a U.S. citizen is named after Levinson, a retired FBI special agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and is now presumed dead. named after Robert Levinson. All Americans are entitled to consular assistance when detained overseas, but a different process is triggered if the detention is deemed unlawful, such as being targeted because of U.S. citizenship.
The Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs will be in charge of the case, along with other resources deployed. The Biden administration has often declared that “there is no higher priority than the release and return of Americans taken hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.”
The U.S. typically has diplomatic channels of engagement with foreign governments, opening the way for negotiations, a tactic not possible with rogue hostage-taking groups.
But each node will have geopolitical risks. The cases often involve legal charges, and countries insist that the integrity of their judicial systems must be preserved. Sending in the military to the rescue or paying huge ransoms is usually not on the table when governments step in.
Dealing with state actors is “much more complicated” than dealing with rogue groups, said Diane Foley, James Foley’s mother and founder and president of The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation.
Roger Carstens, the presidential envoy for hostage affairs since 2020, has become the face of prisoner diplomacy. Carstens, a former Army Ranger, has won praise from the families of some Americans detained overseas.
A lawyer who has dealt with the Trump and Biden administrations on behalf of people detained overseas said Carstens always responded to messages in a timely manner and was able to explain policies to comfort families. At the same time, he is negotiating within a set of framework guidelines that are beyond his control.
Each detainee’s case is different, and not all details of how they are resolved are made public. The relevant sample sizes are small. But there is clearly a new pattern emerging, according to some researchers, which they say could explain the different nature of hostage diplomacy, depending on the countries involved.
Danielle Gilbert, a researcher on US foreign policy and international security at Dartmouth College, said: “My impression is that the powerful countries seem to be more interested in exchanging prisoners; this seems to be Russia and China in these cases. in practice.” She researches hostage-taking and rescue, including operations by state actors.
“Weaker countries take a broader view and potentially involve numerous geopolitical concessions in holding Americans hostage or detaining them as leverage,” Gilbert said.
This rule of thumb can explain how the United States has returned Americans from countries such as North Korea, Turkey, Egypt, and Myanmar in exchange for less obvious or specific concessions than prisoner exchanges. According to people who have been involved in previous cases, the countries released the Americans from custody after they received the attention of the U.S. president or received humanitarian assistance, Gilbert said.
This exposed Russia’s problems: At least when negotiating with the United States, Russia most wants a public prisoner exchange, and other methods such as the return of confiscated diplomatic property may not satisfy Russia.
In mid-February 2022, just days before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Griner was detained on drug charges when experts warned that Russia would have to be certain it had acquired assets of comparable value, leading to efforts to secure her release. Closing deals gets more complicated.
In the ensuing months, the situation has not changed, even considering different combinations and calculations.
Last summer, the U.S. took the unusual step of publicly pressuring Russia to accept a “substantial proposal” from the U.S. about Griner and Whelan. That involved the release of Viktor Bout, a prominent Russian businessman, the people said. Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 for the arms deal.
The Russian side has repeatedly hinted that a one-for-two exchange will never be negotiated. In the end, in December, Griner was only traded for Bout. No progress has been made in coming up with a second candidate in exchange for Whelan. Whelan has been in custody since late 2018 on espionage charges, which he and the United States have always denied.
A similar pattern emerged when Russia released Reade, who was convicted of assaulting two police officers and sentenced to nine years in prison. The United States believes Reed was wrongfully detained.
Reed was swapped with Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian citizen who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2011 for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Washington also tried unsuccessfully to secure Whelan’s release at the time.
The two prisoner exchanges could provide some ideas for how the negotiations between the United States and Russia over Gershkovich might proceed.
Richardson is involved in the cases of Reed, Whelan and Greiner, but not currently in Gershkovich’s case.
Richardson speculates that Russia detained Gershkovich in part in retaliation for the recent U.S. indictment of Sergey Cherkasov. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Cherkasovo of using his Brazilian identity to conduct illegal espionage in the United States. Richardson also pointed to deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations and Russia’s growing interest in using espionage allegations.
“The espionage problem is the most difficult to solve, but it can be solved,” he said.
Since the Greiner-Bout swap was completed on an Abu Dhabi airport tarmac, the world has watched as tensions within the United States have grown over how to handle the hostage-taking incident.
Greiner’s celebrity status has fueled a major campaign around her detention aimed at pressuring the U.S. government to move toward her release. This is a game that may be used over and over again.
“Getting Gershkovich released not only through official channels, but through unofficial channels and a multi-pronged media campaign like the one in the Greiner case, which was very effective,” Richardson said.
A fundamental dilemma is unlikely to be resolved, even as it becomes more common: that negotiating the release of hostages encourages holding hostages.
Some U.S. officials, notably those at the Justice Department, objected to the Bout swap for Greiner. They said it would encourage Russia to abduct more Americans, and that the cases were asymmetrical: Greiner was convicted of bringing less than a gram of marijuana oil into Russia, while Bout was charged with arms trafficking.
Advocates of the exchange bout — including his sentencing judge — have pointed to his increasingly shorter sentences and pointed to the charge he was charged as a result of a phishing enforcement operation.
Some U.S. officials now believe their warnings were borne out in Gershkovic’s custody. In the eyes of others, it is no longer a question of whether the United States will change prisoners, but that the United States must determine which prisoners can be released, and it is ideal enough for Russia.
U.S. officials discussed possible options shortly after Gershkovic was arrested, a person familiar with the discussions said.
At The Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich has reported on Griner’s detention in Russia, including news of her arrest, her judicial process and trial, and the protracted negotiations for her release, including when she was 12 last year. What happened in the days before Yue returned to the United States.
Last Saturday night, Greiner left a text about Gershkovic on Instagram.
“We must do everything we can to bring Gershkovich and all detained Americans home,” she said. “Every American taken away is our fight, and every American returned is a victory for all of us.”