US tells Russian minister Putin should release detained Americans including Gershkovich and Whelan

UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin should release detained Americans, singling out journalist Evan Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelan, and accused the Russian leader of treating “human beings as bargaining chips.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield took the opportunity of Moscow’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, presiding at a U.N. Security Council meeting to promote multilateralism and democracy to appeal for the release of Americans.

Arrests of Americans are increasingly common in Russia, with nine U.S. citizens known to be currently detained there as tensions between the two countries have escalated, especially since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“We will not rest until Paul and Evan come home, and Russia has ceased this barbaric practice of holding human pawns once and for all,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And that’s a promise.”

Whelan, 53, a corporate security director from Michigan, was detained in Moscow in 2018 and convicted of espionage in 2020. He is serving a 16-year sentence on the espionage conviction which both he and Washington say is baseless.

Thomas-Greenfield urged Lavrov to recall a 2023 visit to the Security Council by Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth.

“I asked minister Lavrov to consider her unimaginable pain, having gone four years without seeing her brother, to look into her eyes and see her suffering,” the U.S. ambassador said.

Looking at Lavrov in the president’s seat at the horseshoe-shaped council table, she added: “And so, Minister Lavrov, I want to look into your eyes — while you look into your phone.”

Lavrov briefly looked up to nod at the U.S. ambassador.

U.S. officials said that Russia refused to consider including Whelan in the December 2022 prisoner swap deal that freed women’s basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, calling it a “one or none” decision.

Thomas-Greenfield reminded the Security Council of the previous imprisonment of Griner and Trevor Reed, a former Marine who was arrested in 2019 for allegedly assaulting a police officer while drunk. Reed was released in an April 2022 prisoner swap.

Other U.S. citizens in Russian custody include a musician, an engineer, a staff sergeant, and a journalist for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service.

Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter and the first Western journalist arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia, was detained in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains, while on a reporting trip in March 2023.

Like Whelan, Russia charged Gershkovich with espionage, which he, the Journal, and the U.S. deny.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s office accused Gershkovich last month of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about a military equipment plant 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Yekaterinburg. The plant has been considered a pro-Kremlin symbol since one of its managers publicly denounced Moscow’s anti-government protests in 2011-12.

Gershkovich is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday for the second hearing in his trial. If he is convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, though Russia has indicated it is open to a prisoner swap after a verdict.

Russian courts convict more than 99% of defendants. Prosecutors can appeal sentences that they consider too lenient, and they even can appeal acquittals.