Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to use detained American Paul Whelan as a bargaining chip with the United States to win the release of his own spies, a top Russian official said Wednesday.
“In Russia, people are never used as pawns in a diplomatic game,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to TASS, Russia’s state-run news outlet.
Russian officials arrested Whelan last month on charges of espionage. His family maintains that he was traveling for a friend’s wedding, while Western officials have speculated that he might be used in a swap for a Russian woman who has pleaded guilty to working as a foreign agent to influence U.S. politics in 2016. But Peskov indicated that Russia is not angling to swap Whelan for the woman, Maria Butina.
He spoke soon after British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned Russia against tit-for-tat detentions.
“We don’t agree with individuals being used in diplomatic chess games because it is desperately worrying for not just the individual and the families, and we are all extremely worried about him and his family as we hear this news,” Hunt said.
Whelan, the Michigan-based former Marine, holds British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship, in addition to his American passport.
“My grandfather came from Ireland to England and my father came from England to Canada, and that’s where we were born,” Whelan’s twin brother, David, told the Detroit Free Press. “So we were eligible for British and Canadian citizenship because we were born in Canada to British parents. And then, the Irish changed the law in the early part of the century to allow grandchildren of Irish citizens to get Irish citizenship. So he just thought it’s an opportunity to have that, so why not?”
Some Western experts have cautioned that it will be very difficult to assess Russian claims about Whelan.
“There’s no way to ever clearly distinguish whether there was or wasn’t a case for the kind of detention that has happened in the Whelan case,” Anthony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “[And] there’s no way to prove that you’re innocent.”
Cordesman also tapped the brakes on the theory that Whelan might be swapped for Maria Butina, the Russian national who pleaded guilty to working on behalf of the Russian government to influence Republican politicians and activists. “I think it’s very uncertain that there’s a linkage” between the two cases, he said. Whelan’s attorney fanned those suspicions, however, with his remarks to Western media about the case.
“This is a long process,” attorney Vladimir Zherebenkov said. “I myself hope that we can rescue and bring home one Russian soul.”
Putin’s spokesman disclaimed any information about such an idea. “I haven’t heard about these statements, so I have nothing to say here,” Peskov told reporters.
