Beyond Mirrors LTD (00:01.486) Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised.

After scoring the anxiety, we in our newsroom were hearing from a European source that they were tracking a flight from Moscow to Ankara that they thought had turned around. And so there's a real panic in our newsroom for a good five or 10 minutes thinking that the thing that everyone was trying to avoid had in fact happened, that the publicity was now forcing the Russians to call off the deal. Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (00:48.694) Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. On today's episode, Washington Post national security reporter and good friend of the pod, Shane Harris, joins me to discuss the recent landmark prisoner swap between the US and Russia, which secured the release of several prominent journalists and pro -democracy activists.

We dive into his reporting on the swap, detailing the delicate negotiations, who the Russians received in return, and touch on the complicated question of whether these exchanges incentivize autocrats like Putin to take more Westerners and journalists hostage to extract concessions from their governments. As always, a couple of housekeeping notes first. If you enjoy the show, please leave a five -star rating and review on your podcast streaming app of choice. That really helps new listeners discover us. And if you're not already, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

It's super easy. Just go to patreon .com forward slash secrets and spies. Your generosity helps keep this podcast going. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy our conversation. The opinions expressed by guests on secrets and spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (02:19.054) Hi, Shane. Hi, Matt. Welcome back to the show. It's good to have you on. Thanks, Matt. It's great to be back with you again. think this is my time number three. I'm thrilled. Yeah, yeah, third time. So a week ago, the US and Russia concluded the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. Eight Russians held by Western countries were swapped for 16 held by Russia. Most notable among them are Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gurskiewicz, former Marine Paul Whelan, who

been in prison for over five years, think. Vladimir Karamurza, a well -known Russian democracy activist and Washington Post contributor and Radio Free Europe journalist, Kermit Sheva. You and your post colleagues, Yasmin Abutaleb and Suad Meccanet, had a great peace out that night, I think before the plane landed at Andrews, detailing all this. There's some real drama to this story about how it unfolded.

over months in almost total secrecy. Walk us through how this deal came to be. so it absolutely is a big, big historic deal and one that everybody was really excited for. I will say that when we found out the contours of what this deal was going to be, we were very surprised because it was so big. And so immediately we had a lot of questions about, well, how did this happen? And to answer that question, you can kind of go back a little bit to earlier this year in February when

The Biden administration was working very closely with Germany and through channels to the Russian government to try and arrange a deal that would actually free Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich as well as Alexei Navalny, the very well -known anti -Putin democracy leader, the preeminent voice of democracy in Russia. so there was this deal that was being worked out to do this big swap to free him.

And in exchange, what Putin wanted was a man named Vadim Krasikov, which is a name that people should remember when they're listening to the story and thinking about the story of this big swap. Krasikov was this contract killer and operative for the FSB, you know, the Russian intelligence service, who in 2019 had gunned down a former Chechen fighter in broad daylight in a park in central Berlin.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (04:36.462) He was convicted of that the German government called it an act of state terrorism and he was sentenced to life in prison and Putin saw him as a patriot who was operating on behalf of Russian intelligence and really wanted him back so there was this big swap that was gonna free Krasikov and get back Navalny and hopefully wheeling in Gorshkovich that all fell apart when Alexei Navalny suddenly died in prison and we all remember the the news came out that he

had just sort of kind of dropped dead. were lots of questions about whether Putin had killed him. The guards had killed him. Yeah, was in February. Exactly. Really as world leaders were, were gathered at the Munich security conference in which they were discussing this deal as it turned out on the sidelines privately. So the Biden administration kind of had to go back to the drawing board and working with their German counterparts and others came up with this new idea where.

they could still, they felt get Germany on board with the swap to let Krasikov go, which was a deeply controversial and unpopular thing to do in Germany, where this guy was, basically, you know, a foreign hit man who'd come onto German soil and killed someone, putting civilian lives in danger at that, I think, that the Germans could still be bought back on board if there was something to induce them. And what the Biden administration came up with was this list of these

democracy activists who were imprisoned in Russia, some of whom were German, and to get them out to these are people who had worked with Navalny, some of them, you know, who were not exactly on the level of him, but were kind of his lieutenants and in the spirit of that. And so the Biden administration came up with this idea that, all right, if we get this large group of people out, it can satisfy the Germans.

Putin still wants Krasikov back. He seems to want him so badly that he'll do almost anything. And then maybe we can do it the final big deal where we get Whelan out, Gershkovich out, and also Vladimir out as well. So this really kind of comes together as the result of really intense negotiations, the Biden administration recognizing that Putin wants this contract killer Krasikov, that the Germans have to basically be brought along and kind of induced to it.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (06:54.912) Ultimately, other nations too have to agree to let go some Russians that they have in their custody as part of the deal who will go back over to Russia. The Russians kind of come up with a list and say, okay, here's who we want in exchange. it really isn't, you know, conversations that happen at the level of Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor with his counterpart.

There were meetings that the CIA had with their Russian counterparts in a third country using a channel that they've set up to have intelligence negotiations. President Biden himself got involved talking to Olaf Schultz, the chancellor of Germany, making a very fateful call to the Slovenian prime minister. All of these conversations are kind of happening. And what's fascinating about it is that it really only seems like it gets totally sewed up.

two weeks before the deal actually goes down. So we're talking about months and months and months where in concept people seem to agree to it, but it takes that long to get everyone to finally sign off on it. Something that really struck me in your reporting, Vadim Krasikov is like a great name for a shady Russian assassin. Just no notes on that. When you look at what he did specifically, I this isn't like a spy under non -official cover somewhere who gets busted. You know, it doesn't have diplomatic immunity and has to go.

for the ride through like a Western legal system or something, right? I so he pedaled up to this Chechen in the Tiergarten, as he said, which is, mean, for Berlin, it's like the National Mall or like Hyde Park and shot him in the head twice with a silence pistol and then pedaled off. Like not a good guy. Not subtle. Could you say more about how the Germans got to yes on releasing him? So I think ultimately you have to start with the position, obviously, as we said, that they,

saw this, it kind of not unlike the way I think that the British saw the attempted killing of Skripal, you know, who of course was the Russian general who became an agent for British intelligence, who was actually arrested, then freed in a previous spy swap and went to go live in the countryside in England. And the Russians sent people out to try and kill him and ended up killing an innocent civilian in the process. He and his daughter survived. I think that Krasikov's murder

Beyond Mirrors LTD (09:08.942) or his acts in Germany were kind of met with that sense of public outrage that the Russians, how dare they think they can send someone to our soil and engage in this level of state sanctioned violence. It's completely unacceptable. And for a long time, the Germans were very resistant to this idea. There was an awareness that Putin was after him. The Americans had floated the idea.

What really started to bring Berlin around was the possibility of getting Alexei Navalny freed. Navalny, who had himself been the target of a poisoning attack, he had recuperated in Germany before he then went back to Russia where he was imprisoned. Olaf Schultz had taken a deep per the German Chancellor took a deep personal interest in Navalny's case. He was deeply moved by what he saw as Navalny's courage, his persistence, his willingness to

you know, essentially sacrifice himself for a cause. And so the notion or the idea that Navalny could be freed, I think that was powerful enough to overcome the real, you know, political resistance in the kind of just understandable revulsion around freeing Krasikov. So I think it was deemed as a worthy trade, even though Krasikov is, know, as you say, like a really bad dude. Something that stands out in your reporting also is

how Putin was almost hyper -focused on getting Krasikov out. Even like some of the US officials that he spoke to are still sort of unclear on why. I know since the exchange concluded, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson said to some effect that Krasikov had served with people connected to Putin's protective detail. I wondering if there's, if you could speak more to Putin's focus on Krasikov.

individually and if we know more about his background and just, you know, why Putin wanted him out so bad. does appear that there is a personal relationship there. They knew each other. Peskov saying that bit about Krasikov kind of being part of one of his bodyguards. We had heard that from some of our sources as well. And I think Putin also saw Krasikov. He talked about him as someone who acted out of patriotic interests. You know, he had gunned down this former Chechen fighter who

Beyond Mirrors LTD (11:33.902) Putin saw as an enemy of Russia. He called him at one point, bloodthirsty, this Chechen guy. I think that for Putin, who himself was an FSB officer, KGB officer, and later ran the FSB, he sees Krasikov as someone who is essentially acting at the behest of that organization and acting at the behest of Russian interests, and he's not going to leave a man behind. So there really is that deep connection that's there. And we should remember, too, we can think back to the previous big

prisoner swap of the so -called illegals, know, those Russian deep cover operatives who were living in the United States and some of them had kids here and who were then freed in that big prisoner swap of I guess about 10 years or so ago. You know, when they came back, Putin very much greeted them as returning heroes, as people acting in the interest of Russia. mean, there were reports that they were celebrating and singing Soviet -era anthems together. I think he sees someone like Krasnikov through the lens of an intelligence officer.

which Putin fundamentally that's what he is and had a sense of loyalty that was there. But you're right to say that, US officials still are somewhat puzzled by this. They don't entirely understand the fixation. But it was real and it was something that kept getting brought up again and again and again. We talked to one Russian source who was involved in some parts of trying to put together the the list of Russians who would basically be the ones that they would trade for.

these people, these Western hostages, who said that it was very clear from the beginning that all Putin was interested in was Krasikov. I mean, almost like he didn't care about the other Russians who were coming home. It was always about Krasikov. Another thing that really struck me, believe it was Wednesday night, to the night before this deal, that rummage started to come out that something was potentially in play, know, prisoners moving around, part of the Russian, you know, official presidential fleet.

planes going up in the air, moving people around Russia potentially. The first thing I thought was in any dealing with the US, Putin has right now every incentive to wait through November and see how that goes, or to just, you know, at best just slow walk the deal. I was wondering, you know, what incentive did Putin have to make this deal now? Why give this victory to his, you know, current geopolitical nemesis, Joe Biden? Yeah, I think it's a really good question.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (13:58.99) I don't know Putin's mind, but some thoughts I have on that. One is that he had a good deal on the table. And it was one that was, you know, hard fought in the sense that it took some time for the Russians and the Germans, the Americans come around to it. And I don't know that Putin could have been assured that Donald Trump would just pick up that deal and make the same deal. You know, is it possible that the Germans looking at Donald Trump would say, yeah, we're not going to, we're not willing to do this for you. mean, Olaf Schultz actually told Biden.

You know, at one point when he finally decided to come on board, you know, for you, Joe, I will do this. I don't know if Olaf Schultz would say for you Donald, I would do this. so, know, so Putin may have thought like the getting is good now. So let's, let's do it. And also there would have been a potential delay as Trump came on board. You know, if he were to win, it's like the people have to get their ducks in a row. have to get reorganized. So there was a deal to be had now. And I'm not really sure. I don't know whether Putin.

sees it through the quite that lens of like, this will help Joe Biden. will, you know, and I want to hurt Joe Biden. He may, but I mean, I Krasikov was obviously the guy who wanted back. Remember, too, that by the time this deal was finally going down and signed off, Joe Biden had announced that he wasn't running for reelection. So, you know, I mean, Kamala Harris was sort of involved in some of these negotiations as vice president, but this was a Biden deal and Biden was on the way out the door.

But the timing of it, think, certainly works for Joe Biden. I think Biden wanted to be able to leave saying, I got this done. And I think that probably does help Kamala Harris to some degree as well. I wondering if you could also speak more to the tactic of taking Americans or Westerners hostages as political bargaining chips. There's a lot of criticism that I think a lot of it is in bad faith.

you know, happened under different circumstances or in a different administration, they would have thought this deal alone was like, you know, fantastic. But there is legitimate concerns about making such a deal and how increases the likelihood that more Americans are, yeah, essentially taken hostage for political bargaining chips. But if you could say more about, you know, any concerns that you're hearing from sources and stuff about managing that part of it versus the need to bring these people home. Yeah.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (16:18.158) It's a concern that always comes up, interestingly, every time there's an exchange like this. I take the long view of this, which is that the United States has been negotiating for the release of Americans held abroad for decades. Like the notion is, you know, the old saw like we don't negotiate with terrorists. That's simply not true. Ronald Reagan did it in the 1980s. He sold arms, exchanged arms for hostages held in Lebanon. Famously, that became one of the pieces of the Iran -Contra affair.

people pay ransom all the time for people who have been taken hostage in countries around the world that don't get much press. I executives and business executives in Latin America who get taken hostages, people pay ransom for them all the time. Not to the United States pays ransom, the government anyway. The United States trades spies for spies. They have done it for decades. So the incentive is already there.

to take Americans because there is an infrastructure in which the United States government will negotiate. The stakes aren't high, but I don't know that Vladimir Putin, I don't think that Vladimir Putin needed more incentive to do this, to take her hostages in the future. I he's already been doing it for a long time. mean, he was doing it in part to force the Americans' hands to give up Krasikov. It's one reason he kept taking.

people was to bring them to the table. So I don't think that this deal now creates a new set of incentives and conditions that didn't exist before that make it more likely that countries are going to take American prisoners. They've already been likely to take them. mean, those incentives are already there, I guess is what I mean to say. It's really a matter of whether a country's leader is going to take the political risk of doing it. thought recently there's potentially a really, this may already exist. I'm not sure if it does or not.

there's potentially a really good book waiting to be written on like spy master diplomacy and like the role that different CIA directors throughout history have played as like shadow secretaries of state. The CIA had some role in getting this deal over the finish line. I if you could say more about that. Yeah, and that is a, that is totally true. It's a great subject for a book or a long article. So the CIA, you can kind of think of this hostage negotiation, way that this worked is

Beyond Mirrors LTD (18:36.13) pursuing multiple tracks, right? There is, and there are kind of three that are really key. I one is sort of the, would guess you would call it the political administration level. So the White House, you've got Jake Sullivan talking to his counterpart in Germany. You've got the president talking to world leaders. There's that kind of executive piece. There is a formal diplomatic piece where the state department is interacting with other foreign ministries through overt channels, through traditional diplomatic channels.

And then there's this third kind of channel, which is the intelligence agencies. And that is where you're right. You the CIA has this means of passing messages to and meeting with their Russian counterparts, sometimes in a third country. And some people might say like, well, what's the difference here? This is all just people talking to people. But the intelligence channel is, it's clandestine. It's not publicized.

They can go have these meetings without any attention being drawn to them. They don't announce them. And what a lot of people maybe don't fully understand is that for a lot of countries in the world, intelligence services and agencies are composed of, and you know this very well and probably listeners your podcast too, of people who kind of stay in those jobs. It's a professional class of people who have ways of talking to one another on a collegial level.

even when their countries are kind of overtly adversaries or even enemies with one another. And conversations are often easier to happen. Messages are easier to transmit in that channel. I mean, you see some of this happening. Actually, you see it more, but in the context of the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages there where Bill Burns, the CIA director,

also is playing a big role. I Tony Blinken is running around the region all the time, the Secretary of State trying to negotiate, but it's also Burns who sits down with his counterpart from Mossad, with his counterpart from Egyptian intelligence, with a Qatari intermediary and tries to talk to Hamas. So in this case, what you saw was the CIA, that channel, the intelligence channel, that was where the proposals were going back and forth. while you could think of

Beyond Mirrors LTD (20:52.448) maybe like the White House is kind of where the blueprint is drawn up. When it gets down to the level of like the builders who are going to have to put this thing together, that conversation and that deal making and haggling is going on through the intelligence channel. And Bill Burns is a huge part of that. And you know, you're totally right that there's this history of spymasters doing these kinds of negotiations. What's fascinating about this particular spymaster, Bill Burns is that he's doing a lot of it. I mean,

When the book is written or the chapter is written on his tenure as the CIA director, a huge part of that is going to be about negotiating for hostages, whether it be in Gaza or in Russia. And I kind of like think of him, you know, a joke sometimes, I don't think I invented this term, but as the secretary of hard problems, where, you know, he is kind of the guy that gets sent out to do these missions that...

have a huge diplomatic component, but also are ones that traditionally people in the intelligence field do. And he seems to be pretty good at it. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with more.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (22:10.712) So this exchange went down on the tarmac of Ankara's airport. had last Thursday, I had, as I was working on other stuff, I Flightradar24 open like all day looking at this row of corporate jets lined up on the ramp there. What have you heard from your sources about how Turkey came to play this role and just the mechanics of how such a swap goes down? I literally like from...

plane to plane, checking names off, you know, that stuff. still don't know why Turkey became the exchange point. It's a good question. I haven't been able to answer yet. I know that Turkey's role in this was not just merely to like offer an airport. The Turks had certain prerogatives of their own. mean, notably it was the Turkish government that first announced that a prisoner swap was happening. They kind of came out with a press release essentially while it was happening on the ground.

which we can get to in a minute when we talk about this embargo that was put on journalists and reporting on it and why the Well, we can get to that in a bit if you want. So Turkey becomes the middle point of this exchange. The logistics were complicated. You had planes that were going to have to take off from other countries with prisoners that were the ones that were going back to Russia. So Russian people who'd been convicted in courts in Western governments.

those people were going to have to get flown to Turkey. There was a flight coming out of Moscow that had all of the Americans and then the people who were going to Germany. You have a flight that had to leave Belarus because there was a German national, German citizen being held in Belarus who had actually been sentenced to death on charges that he was a saboteur slash operative for you.

train, and then he had been quickly pardoned so he could be part of this deal. He had to be flown to Moscow and then flown to Ankara. So there's planes everywhere. And our understanding was that they would be arriving in Ankara sometime before 11 a Washington time because the White House's expectation was that the flight that was coming back to Andrews, which was the one that they were, I mean,

Beyond Mirrors LTD (24:24.43) arguably most concerned about because it the American citizens on it, that was going to try to be wheels up by 11 a They anticipated that it would probably slip past that time because once everybody gets on the ground, they have to first count to make sure all the people are on that flight from Moscow that Moscow promised would be on it. And officials that we talked to in the days before the swap kept stressing, this swap is not complete until we see who shows up on the tarmac. And in the case of people like

Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan. Okay, that's obvious. Everybody knows what those people look like. I mean, they are visibly recognizable. But then there are people who are going to be on that plane who the US government may or may not know what they look like. So there had to be efforts to positively identify them. I don't know if this actually materialized, but there was some consideration of maybe even having family members of some of those prisoners.

on the tarmac as well so that they could visibly identify their relative and confirm like, yes, that's them and it's not somebody else. So that all had to be done. So I mean, that's just kind of a wild element of this have like, you're thinking like, you know, it's almost like, you know, going on a field trip where you're counting all the heads, right, to make sure everyone's on the bus. They had to do that, get everybody on a plane. There was a Russian

government person filming this on the ground. understanding is that the US also had people on the ground filming it in case they needed to like counter their propaganda. They get everybody on the flight, you there's a medic on the plane. I believe there was a psychiatrist or a psychologist if anybody just needed like any immediate kind of counseling. Just need a moment, yeah. If you need a moment. And then their wheels up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I still, I mean, I

If I, my first question to Evan Gershkovich if I interviewed him would be, what did you talk about on the plane? And I don't mean that flippantly, but like really it's like you've been in prison for this long. You're finally on this plane. Like what, what did you do? What was the first thing? Did you start asking questions about the election? Did you want to know about your family? And for Paul Wheeland as well. And obviously they had some contact with the outside world. These folks did, but this is the moment that they are actually free is the moment that they are.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (26:33.354) out of Russian hands and then into American hands and being put on a plane. And this is another thing that the White House really emphasized was that they are not out of Russian custody when that plane leaves Moscow. They are not out of Russian custody when it lands in Ankara. They're out of Russian custody when they're in our hands, when they are unhanded by the Russians. And so, you know, that really was...

kind of a moment when we eventually saw those pictures of Evan being handed off, that's when they're free and when their wheels up, they're really free. I had wondered if, you know, they would even obtain DNA samples from family members and then check right then and there, like to be absolutely certain, like this is who it purports to be. And they may have. mean, there's a lot of, I think there's a lot more of reporting to learn about what the exchange was like on the ground. And I suspect a lot of that will actually come from the former prisoners themselves who can talk about that. Yeah.

You know, I had been hesitant to ask you about the, to put you on the spot and ask about the embargo situation, but you you had, it was clear that you and a lot of your colleagues, not just at the Post, but other papers had been told in confidence some of this, some of these details in advance, but wait until, as you said, they're out of Russian custody, it's done, they're safe. There's been a lot of reporting about some issues there. Anything you want to say about that? Sure.

know, embargoes for people who don't know what an embargo is, that means that a source, in this case, you know, an official source, gives you information on the agreement that you will not publish it or anything about it until a specific date and time. So they'll brief you and the information is under embargo until an agreed upon time. And in this case, what happened was, so on Tuesday, I think it was of last week, my colleagues and I were starting to

see hints of what looked like a potential prisoner swap. And you could see this on social media where it first surfaced was family and lawyers of some of these democracy activists who had been jailed in Russia were publicly reporting, hey, we can't find them. They seem to have disappeared. They're no longer being held in the prison or the penal colony. Where did they go? And you get this sense that people are being moved. Lots of people are being moved. And this kind of starts to look like, maybe here's a prisoner exchange.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (28:55.736) could be going on because that's what you traditionally see before a prisoner exchange. So this kind of chatter and speculation is happening on social media. You mentioned flight trackers. People were spotting aircraft used by the Russian government, including Putin himself, flying to regions where these prisons are located. So people are kind of starting to connect the dots. I start reporting this out and then pretty quickly can confirm with official sources that, yes, something very big is happening. And the Biden administration

quickly makes the request, please do not report on this because we are really afraid and I think they genuinely were afraid that a lot of publicity on this could potentially scotch the whole deal that it could force the Russians to back away. Maybe they try and change the contours of the deal at the last minute. Maybe they think, now we have leverage. Let's ask for more because the public is now suddenly thinks, Evan's coming home. Paul's coming home. So the White House was super keen to keep this under wraps and said, you know, basically

we will brief you on embargo so that you have stories ready to go and you can start your reporting if you just wait. And the embargo was always that when they were wheels up from the exchange point and we didn't, they didn't tell us it was Ankara. We found out later it was Ankara. But it was very clear. It's not wheels up from Moscow. It's not while the plane is in the air. It's after the plane has left Ankara. So this, and it's important for a reason I got to in a second, but you know what this allowed us to do was

to put these stories together and start creating context for people and being ready to tell them when it happened, okay, here's who's on the plane, here's who's coming home, here's what it all means. A, it was served the reporting, but I think more to the point in this case, and we do embargo arrangements all the time, nobody wanted to mess this deal up. I mean, particularly journalists who have made such a...

concerted global effort really led by our colleagues at the Wall Street Journal, where I used to work, to get Evan Gershkovich out and Vladimir Karamurza and also two other journalists who are being held, not to say that they're more valuable than anybody else, but journalists were particularly interested in this case. It's personal for you guys. It's very personal. the idea that we would do, nobody was going to do anything to screw that up. I mean, we were even being careful as we were seeing these reports surface on

Beyond Mirrors LTD (31:21.902) prisoners being moved and we were writing about this like not to say too much because we wanted to honor the terms of the embargo. So we were briefed the day before the flight and then the morning that the flight was in the air, the White House held another briefing for a larger group of reporters. And while we were on that call with the White House, Bloomberg News reported that Evan Gershkovich had been freed.

which was both a violation of the embargo that we understand Bloomberg News had agreed to. It was also inaccurate because he had not been freed. He was on a Russian military airplane, like surrounded by Russians with guns. You know, maybe they didn't have guns. I don't know. But point being, he was in Russian custody. And so, you know, we were understandably unnerved by this and saying to the White House, hey, what's going on? This embargo doesn't feel tenable. You know, they said,

just because this information is out there doesn't mean the embargo is lifted. There is still a real risk here that this could get screwed up. Please don't publish anything. you know, underscoring the anxiety, we in our newsroom were hearing from a European source that they were tracking a flight from Moscow to Ankara that they thought had turned around. And so there's a real panic in our newsroom for a good five or 10 minutes thinking that the thing that everyone was trying to avoid had in fact happened, that the publicity was now forcing the

Russians to call off the deal. Now it turned out that that was a false alarm or some misunderstanding and the flight did land and we know it turned out okay. But you know, I don't think that these were theoretical concerns that the administration had that blowing the embargo and throwing a spotlight on the deal before it was done could potentially screw up the deal. So ultimately it all turned out well. But you know, I will note that the editor of Bloomberg News issued a public apology.

They acknowledged that they investigated this. They said, we have disciplined people over this. At least two people, I think, were fired or asked to leave. And the editor said, I'm sending a personal letter to every one of the hostages apologizing for this because it never should have happened. So that's pretty dramatic. And it kind of tells you, I think, the degree to which all news organizations really were taking this pretty darn seriously. And when Bloomberg acknowledges they broke it and they shouldn't have, they apologized. Yeah, pretty.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (33:39.198) rare public mea culpa that you don't see all that often in the industry yet, which I think speaks to the caliber of the mistake there potentially. Two Americans not part of the exchange, a teacher who was working in Moscow when he was arrested, Mark Fogle, and a dual citizen, a ballerina, Ksenia Karolina, who just yesterday, I believe, pleaded guilty to treason for

donating, I'm not kidding, $50 to a Ukrainian charity. And I believe the Russians are seeking a 16 -year sentence. Is her sentencing a signal, potential, that there is more movement coming on her front? And what do we know about negotiations to get Mark Fogel out eventually? So in general, sentencing can be a signal. It's not always. It was in the case of Evan and also who were very quickly

Their trials were speeded up and they were both convicted on the same day and got given sentences. The Russians like to sentence people before they free them. So they kind of go through the process. And then I think there's a formal process where the prisoners have to request clemency directly from Vladimir Putin. The Wall Street Journal reported that when Evan Gershkovich wrote his letter requesting clemency from Vladimir Putin, he ended it by asking him for an interview, which I think is amazing. That's so badass.

Yeah, it's great. is great. It's great. But yeah, so in the case of the woman you mentioned, it could be. I hesitate to say it is because I don't have any reporting on that. And we shall also remember, know, Paul Whelan was sentenced and served years of a sentence. Mark Fogel, you know, when we were getting briefed about who was in the deal, it was notable immediately to us that Fogel was not included. I have no doubt that's devastating for his family. The White House was insistent. They are continuing efforts to try.

to get him out. I don't know what those efforts consist of, but given how, you know, diligently and pretty relentlessly they worked the previous exchange, I don't doubt that they're working hard to get Fogel out, but I don't know what the status of that is and who, if anyone, the Russians have said they might want in return. One thing I will note is that if Fogel was convicted on a

Beyond Mirrors LTD (35:53.152) essentially a drugs charge. mean, he had an amount of small amount of medical marijuana in his possession that he used for pain, I believe, which would be permissible in the United States. It's not that dissimilar from the Brittany Griner case, the professional basketball player. And what Russia may be doing is trying to find someone who is sort of an equivalent in their eyes to Fogel, which is kind of just a weird Russian paradox. I mean, they like to trade spies for spies and they had, you know, accused and convicted

Paul and Evan of espionage, even though there's no evidence of that. So they kind of keep up some of this sort of artifice. But in Brittany Greiner's case, she was traded for Victor Boot, possibly the most notorious arms merchant on the planet. That's not a one for one swap. the Russians - to death. Yeah, exactly. Putin is going to, eventually if there's somebody he wants, they'll make it known. But they may be saving Fogel because they wanted to somehow keep up an appearance of more of a political swap.

in this last one, but I'm not sure. I've struggled with this last question a lot because I'm really not sure how I even feel. It's tough to consider. I mean, granted, before Evans arrest, I don't think such a thing really seemed all that likely. But since 2022, Russia has staggered dramatically toward North Korea levels of autocracy. I don't think it's hyperbolic to put them in that league now. The State Department bans Americans from visiting North Korea, much as living there.

The Washington Post isn't setting up a bureau in Pyongyang anytime soon. Americans can still travel to Russia pretty easily if they want to. Any American entering such a country has made themself a valuable hostage. Doubly so when employed by a globally prestigious paper network with the resources to keep their case under Kleeg lights. So on the one hand, there's a true journalistic duty to report the real story from within these countries. So they aren't just black holes on the map. But on the other, your government has a duty to bring you home.

which may force us to make concessions that are geopolitically distasteful or even harmful to national security. As an American journalist, Pulitzer Prize -winning journalist, how do you feel about that in the wake of Evans or Deal? How does that get balanced? Not easily. There is a sense, obviously, and I think it's kind of, you maybe it gets brought up for some people just even in the question, right? You've been warned.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (38:13.826) don't do this, don't go there. And if you go and you get caught, why should we expect that the country will move heaven and earth to get you back and maybe make compromises that are not in America's interests? And I understand that some people may feel that way for sure. You know, it is the fallacy of the US government to do what it can to get its citizens home. It's also the policy to warn them not to go certain places, but it still does try to get them out. It doesn't say, sorry, we warned you, you're on your own. I think in the case of journalists,

And this is not to say again that we're in some superlative class, but I'll just speak to journalists because that's what I do. You know, when we go to Russia or go to dangerous places, we're doing it with a public interest in mind. We're doing it to attempt to inform people on what's happening in those countries. And it's risky. And yes, sure. There are some journalists, I think, who get a thrill out of that risk.

But I don't think that that diminishes the value or the importance of the public service mission that they're on. And so I do think that we should view them not unlike in some ways aid workers who would go into a dangerous place to try and provide food and shelter and medical attention for people. And we would never say to those people like,

You know, you were warned not to go into that war zone and now you're on your own. Okay. And whatever happens to you is, your problem. No, we would say that they were doing something that was not in their own self -interest. They were trying to help people. Journalism I know maybe is a little different because, you know, you get your name on a story and maybe you become a public personality, but fundamentally these people are risking their lives to tell people information. And so, you know,

I think every journalist has to make their own decision on how much they want to put themselves at risk to do that. I have colleagues who have still reported from inside Russia. It doesn't happen very often, but they, you know, and sometimes it's under controlled circumstances where the government knows they're coming in and it's kind of a controlled interview and then they go back out. But, you know, I still think that we need to be judicious and careful.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (40:21.336) But we should be able to operate with the expectation that if the worst happens that our government is going to do everything that it can to get us out. We should not expect that it's going to happen quickly. That's the other thing too. And there are still journalists whose fate is unknown. My Washington Post colleague Austin Tice is still not back. We don't.

There is speculation on what may have happened to him, but his fate is still undetermined and the government is still working on that. So, you know, it won't happen overnight, but I do think that we should be able to operate around the world with an expectation that our government is not going to just abandon us in the course of us doing our duty. to that point, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of the end of 2023, it's estimated 320 journalists around the world were in prison because of their work.

And according to the James Foley Foundation, more than 40 Americans are unjustly held abroad. Anything else you'd like to touch on today that we haven't covered yet? No, it's a great story with a happy ending. We don't always get to write happy endings. And for as much as we should absolutely emphasize exactly what you just said, Matt, that there are so many people who are still held and journalists as well. This is actually, this story is a very happy one. And it's a great reason, I think, to celebrate, you know, these people are finally going to be home.

And in the case of, know, Evan and also in Vladimir, I think probably every expectation that they'll continue doing great work as journalists. So it's been, it's been a good week. Yeah. Second that completely. Shane, where can listeners find more about you and your work? You can find me at the Washington Post. If you Google Shane Harris, Washington Post, you get a list of all the stories that I write. You can follow me over there. You can find me on Twitter at Shane Harris. And I'm great podcasts like this one. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on today. Always, always much appreciated. Until next time. Absolutely. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, my friend.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (42:41.966) Thanks for listening, this is Secrets and Spies.