US-Russia prisoner swap ‘momentous moment’, says Putin critic

We’re joined by financier Bill Browder, who is a friend of Vladimir Kara-Murza. He’s been an outspoken critic of Russia’s President since the death in a Moscow prison of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who’d uncovered massive fraud involving Russian officials.

We’re also joined by the Washington Post’s David Herszenhorn, who previously worked with Evan Gershkovich at the New York Times.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Bill Browder, first of all, you must be absolutely delighted, but there is a kick in the teeth, isn’t there, that this was too late for Alexei Navalny?

Bill Browder: I’m absolutely relieved that my close friend and ally, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is on the plane today. Vladimir had been poisoned twice by the Putin regime and then sentenced to 25 years in prison. And he looked like he was going to die in prison. And, as you mentioned, another colleague of mine did die in prison, Sergei Magnitsky, and so we thought that Vladimir was going to die as well. So the fact that he’s on a plane home and not being killed is absolutely a huge relief. Of course, this is all in the context of Alexei Navalny, who was killed. This is really a life and death situation, for Vladimir, for Evan Gershkovitch, for Paul Whelan, for all of these individuals. We’re all just in a state of shock, I guess, that they’re coming home and that they’re coming home safe after all this horror and just terrible stuff that’s been going on. So an unbelievably good day, and a very, very, momentous moment for all the families, friends and everybody connected to all of these hostages.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: David, let me just get your first reaction as well as a friend of Evan Gershkovich.

David Herszenhorn: Everything that Bill has just shared, of course, is true. And at the same time, there’s a dark cloud over all of this when you consider the imbalance. The shadow of Vladimir Putin winning the release of a convicted assassin, convicted in Germany, a country with a rule of law. On the other side, you see innocent folks who have to be freed, journalists like Evan Gershkovich, just doing his job for the Wall Street Journal. No evidence whatsoever that he was engaged in espionage ever presented by the Kremlin or its courts, his trial rushed earlier this month when it started to be clear that there was going to be a deal, and immediately there was a conviction. Same day, there was a conviction of Alsu Kurmasheva, who was also released today, from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Again, a total sham in that justice system and so you understand that, in fact, there’s incentive here for Russia to continue taking prisoners, because Putin does win their release. He’s won this assassin’s release. Brittney Griner, the American basketball star, you remember, with less than a gram of cannabis oil, she was sentenced to more than nine years in prison, held until Putin secured the release of Viktor Bout, notorious arms trafficker known as the Merchant of Death. So, on the one hand, a huge relief, for all these folks and their families, also for Russian dissidents. And this is striking that Germany, the United States, Western countries use their political capital to free Russian citizens persecuted and imprisoned in Russia. Not just Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, of course, is a colleague at the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winning contributor to Post opinions. But associates of Alexei Navalny, who were in prison as Navalny himself died in an Arctic prison and now are on this plane headed to Germany, headed to meet Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, freed after being persecuted in their own countries simply for wanting it to be a free and democratic society.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Bill, the complexity of these negotiations is extraordinary. Do you agree, and this is something Republicans are pointing out in the context of the US elections as well, the downside to this is it’s a reward for hostage taking effectively?

Bill Browder: I totally agree with that, and moreover, it goes further than that. So if we look at who Putin really wanted to get free, it’s Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer, a hitman for the Kremlin. And so we see this hitman being freed, and what’s the message that it says then to other hitmen of the Putin regime? The message is that, if you get into trouble in a foreign country, we’ll be able to get you out of that trouble. So therefore, I think it increases the danger to everybody who’s opposed to Putin sitting outside of Russia that these types of deals can be done. And so on one hand, that’s terrible and it’s also terrible to release real cold-blooded killers. On the other hand, we had a bunch of people that would potentially die in prison. I’m very supportive of the idea of having freed all of these prisoners. I completely understand the reservations about these types of deals, and I would say that the simplest way to avoid this in the future is to say you can’t travel to Russia anymore. It’s no longer a safe country to travel to. And Western governments could say, no more travelling to Russia, that if you’re an American citizen, a British citizen, an EU citizen, no travelling to Russia because we don’t want to have any more hostages taken, because that’s what happens when you go to Russia.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: David, that’s quite a challenge to journalism. What do you make of that as an idea?

David Herszenhorn: It’s certainly a challenge to journalism. It’s a challenge to all of society. And it’s a shame, right? At the Washington Post, we’re right now putting together and have been publishing articles in a series called Russia Remastered about how Putin is transforming his own country even as he’s making war in Ukraine, invading another country, destroying it, violating the borders, occupying cities, trying to thwart its democratic aspirations, its ambitions to join the European Union and live as a free society. At the same time, Russia itself is being transformed into this militaristic, ultra national society. Women’s rights being rolled back, the education system being redrawn to militarise young people. In fact, culture, the things that brought people to visit Russia, that brought them joy, the Bolshoi Ballet, theatres, songs, music, all these nationalist mandates imposed on artists, some of whom who oppose the war, have had to flee. They’re banned from performing. There are blacklists imposed. So there’s a huge transformation that’s been underway. So even since the days of Sergei Magnitsky’s terrible, tragic murder in a Russian prison, Russia has become a different kind of a place. It is a war time society that is becoming much more nationalistic, much more militaristic. Many Russians don’t feel safe anymore who are living there. And in fact, there are warnings for Americans and other Westerners not to travel to Russia. People do violate those warnings, and we see sometimes the awful results.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Bill Browder, why do you think Putin has done this? It can’t be as simple as just getting back Krasikov, can it?

Bill Browder: I think it is. If we look back to that Tucker Carlson interview where he made it clear he wanted Krasikov. If we look at various other public statements he made, for some reason, he’s, like, invested in Krasikov. Is he a personal friend? Does he owe him something? Is it to send a message to other secret police assassins that you’ll be okay if you get caught? I don’t know what the reason is, but he’s been very vocal for a very long time that he wants this guy. The interesting thing about the timing is that when President Biden was running against Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, Putin very much favours the election of Donald Trump. And so he didn’t want to do any big favours for Biden that would have helped him in an election. But when Biden dropped out, that kind of cleared the path for this to happen, because on one hand, Putin had his incentives to do this, whatever his reasons were, which were pretty strong. And on the other side, the disincentive against doing this had sort of disappeared because Biden was out of the race, and whatever he did for Biden doesn’t necessarily transfer over to Kamala Harris. So I think that U.S. politics played a role in the timing of this decision, and of course, his own incentives about getting out his friend and maybe some other of these people. There’s a there’s a few other money launderers, spies and other characters who have been arrested and thrown into this prisoner swap deal as well. But perhaps all that was enough of an incentive.