What historic prisoner swap means for US-Russia relations

The successful agreement between Russia, the U.S. and a host of other nations to exchange prisoners marked the culmination of years of intensive diplomacy. 

But the White House on Thursday played down the possibility the prisoner exchange would lead to a thawing of relations with Russia on a host of other global security issues — in particular Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

President Biden, announcing the prisoner exchange on Thursday, was asked if the swap might prompt a dialogue with the Russian leader.  

“I don’t need to speak with Putin,” he said. 

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said that negotiations over detained persons fall into a “separate track” from diplomacy on Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying the Ukrainians would be in the lead on any diplomatic efforts. 

Sullivan added that there was no direct engagement with Putin on the prisoner exchange, but extensive engagement with Russian officials.

“Those channels are sensitive and need to be protected for exactly this reason — because having those sensitive channels enables us to produce results like today,” he said. 

Experts said it was too soon to say whether the successful exchange signaled an opening for more diplomacy with Russia.

“I wouldn’t rule it out, but there’s no logical connection,” said John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former ambassador to Ukraine. 

“And given the overall circumstances in the Russian-Western relationship, I don’t expect anything to come of it. Because Putin needs to end his aggression in Ukraine for there to be improvements.”

The prisoner exchange included 16 people released from Russia and Belarus — three Americans, one U.S. green card holder, five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Eight Russians held in the U.S., Germany, Poland, Norway and Slovenia were released in the exchange.

Alena Kudzko, vice president for policy and programming at the Slovakian-based think tank GLOBSEC, offered insight into the state of mind of Putin and his key regional ally, longtime authoritarian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. 

The prisoner exchange is a “culmination of a long-standing series of efforts on both sides, but also a reflection that both Russia and Belarus want to test the waters on how far they can go in negotiations with Western countries,” she said. 

“There is a feeling that the time is almost ripe and Western countries will be ready to talk soon about much more than prisoners. Minsk for sure is trying to feel out whether concessions on prisoners can be exchanged for concessions on sanctions or other measures.”

One of the key pieces of the deal appeared to hinge on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreeing to release from a Berlin prison convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov — a prisoner whom Putin had long said was the price for the release of Americans. 

“The demands [Russia] were making of me, required me to get some significant concessions from Germany, which they originally concluded they could not do because of the person in question,” Biden said in remarks from the White House.

Among the released Germans is Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death on terrorism and other charges but was pardoned in recent days by Lukashenko, which signaled the imminence of the larger prisoner exchange.

Krieger was arrested in Belarus in October 2023 for “mercenary activity,” according to the Viasna Human Rights Center. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, criticized Lukashenko as “staging” Krieger’s arrest and “pardoning him to raise the stakes in the game of his Kremlin master” in a post on the social platform X. 

“For Putin it’s very clearly a priority to get back from Western jails Russian political operatives, Krasikov in Germany is a key player on this side of it,” said Herbst, of the Atlantic Council.

Valery Kavaleuski, a former Belarusian diplomat who is part of the Belarusian political opposition in exile, said the exchange showed Lukashenko’s ability to demonstrate his utility to Putin and the West.

“From the very beginning there was a sense that Lukashenko was being instrumentalized by the Kremlin to put additional pressure on Germany to extract” Krasikov, he said. 

Kavaleuski said that the release shows achievements can be reached between conflicting parties, and he raised the issue of a humanitarian list of about 250 Belarusian vulnerable political prisoners — including a frail Nobel Peace Prize laureate — and many others held since Lukashenko claimed victory in a 2020 election widely criticized as fraudulent. 

“For us it is another positive precedent that actually, even with bad relations between parties, people are reaching some solutions to such humanitarian issues,” said Kavaleuski, who also serves as the executive director of the EuroAtlantic Affairs Agency.

And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also demonstrated his ability to be a key interlocutor between Western democracies and authoritarian governments, even as the Turkish president remains a lightning rod for controversy in NATO and threatens to attack Israel over its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

Those released from Russia were flown to Turkey, where they changed planes to reunite with their families in the U.S. and Europe. 

Erdoğan has frustrated allies by maintaining ties with Moscow, domestic political suppression, aggression in the Middle East and holding up Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO to exact political concessions. But the U.S. often praises Ankara for its hosting of millions of Syrian refugees and helping to facilitate sensitive diplomatic operations — such as the prisoner exchange. 

“Turkey has maintained some good relations with Russia even though it has done some things which have annoyed the hell out of the Kremlin,” said Herbst. “And just like they maintained a relationship with us, even though they annoy the hell out of us. Turkey is an important player and this demonstrates again that Turkey is an important player.” 

Biden praised Turkey as “stepping up” in the deal on Thursday.