"One night in August 2024, the two of us stood on a runway at Joint Base Andrews in the balmy Maryland moonlight, watching the sky for an unmarked CIA jet that would deliver three Americans who had been imprisoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin as bargaining chips. Among them was our Wall Street Journal colleague Evan Gershkovich, the first American reporter jailed on espionage charges since the Soviet era."
"the United States has become enmeshed in a piratical new world, and in a major shift in U.S. foreign policy, both political parties now accept that prisoner-trading with the likes of Putin is a game that America must play. Norms of conduct that stabilized Moscow-Washington relations even at the height of the Cold War have now eroded. Putin is testing how much he can use prisoners and their desperate families as"
Three Americans, including reporter Evan Gershkovich, were delivered on a covert CIA flight after being imprisoned by Russian authorities and used as bargaining chips. Secret negotiations involved spies, oligarchs, intermediaries, and celebrities and produced the largest U.S.-Russian prisoner swap, freeing inmates jailed in seven countries. The United States has shifted toward accepting prisoner-trading as a necessary instrument of statecraft, a change embraced across major parties. Longstanding norms that once stabilized Moscow-Washington relations have weakened. Putin appears to be testing the leverage of prisoners and families, and successive deals risk incentivizing further seizures while undermining law enforcement against violators.
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