Echoes of Cold War in Paul Whelan's detention and release

By Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On Dec. 28, 2018, agents with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a little-known former U.S. marine named Paul Whelan in Moscow's Metropol Hotel, accusing him of being a spy.

Over the next six years, until his release on Thursday as part of a large prisoner exchange, Russian authorities refused to free Whelan even as they struck deals to exchange other Americans, including basketball player Brittney Griner in 2022.

U.S. officials have said that Whelan, 54, who was serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony on espionage charges, had been "wrongfully detained" by Russian agents and was targeted because he is an American citizen.

Like journalist Evan Gershkovich and other Americans held in Russia, Whelan's plight was complicated by the worst Russian-American ties in decades following Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.

To his family, Whelan was a hostage at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country is locked in an existential struggle for a new world order with the U.S.-led West.

His case rose to the highest levels of the U.S. government, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisting that Whelan faced "sham charges of espionage" and that Moscow was treating him differently from other detainees, inflicting needless suffering on his family.

After Whelan was detained by FSB agents, the Russian government called him a spy for military intelligence and said he had been caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information.

Whelan denied being a spy, saying he was caught up in a Russian sting operation and that he took the flash drive - assuming it contained holiday photos - during a friend's wedding in Russia where he was a regular visitor.

After a trial held entirely behind closed doors that U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque, Whelan was convicted of spying in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security jail. He was held in the IK-17 prison in the Mordovia region, east of Moscow, notorious since Soviet times for its penal colonies.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Whelan's detention was "symptomatic" of the resurgence of Cold War posturing between Russia and the U.S.-led West.

"It's a hallmark of the state of relations that we're currently in," Hardie said. "We're definitely in a cold war, or great power competition."

Leon Aron, a Russia specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, also saw "echoes of the Cold War," with Putin's government using a Soviet tactic of going after dissidents and non-spies to gain leverage for exchanges.

Aron, saying the tactics reflected a weakness in Russia's hand, added: "Putin is, as in many other ways, imitating the Soviet secret police where he cut his teeth."

SOVIET TACTICS

Born in Ottawa, Canada, to British parents of Irish origin, Whelan later moved to Novi, Michigan, and is a national of all four countries. He served with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve from 2003-2008, much of the time as an administrative clerk in Iraq.

At the end of that period, he was given a bad-conduct discharge for larceny and other lesser offences, after trying to steal $10,000. At the time of his arrest in Russia, Whelan was head of global security for BorgWarner, a Michigan car parts supplier.

During his nearly six-year ordeal in Russia, Whelan said he felt left behind by the U.S. after he wasn't included in two 2022 prisoner exchanges the Biden administration orchestrated with Moscow.

The first involved another former U.S. Marine, Trevor Reed, released in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, and the second a swap of notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for basketball star Griner.

"This was not a choice of which American to bring home. The choice was one or none," Blinken said after Griner's release.

Whelan was attacked by another inmate while in prison, punched in the face and forced to defend himself at a sewing workshop, according to his brother. Last November, a Russian court rejected his request to serve his sentence in the U.S.

Moscow refused repeated U.S. proposals for Whelan's release, leading his supporters to despair there were few avenues left for his return.

Whelan told the BBC in December that U.S. proposals for his release were like "throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks," calling the back and forth a "serious betrayal."  

"The problem is, it's my life that's draining away while they do this," he told the broadcaster.

Just weeks before his release, he told CNN he hoped U.S. President Joe Biden would treat his case as if "his own son were being held hostage."

But he had also expressed gratitude for U.S. government officials working for his release, and his family supported the deal for Griner's return even as they called for more action on Whelan's case.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Leslie Adler)