Here are some prisoner swaps that freed Americans.
The prospect of the United States exchanging basketball star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine, for a Russian prisoner is reminiscent of the fraught deals Washington orchestrated with Moscow and its allies during and since the Cold War.
Experts have said such a deal may be the only path to freedom for Mr. Whelan and Ms. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who plays for the Phoenix Mercury.
What to Know About Brittney Griner’s Detention in Russia
What happened? In February, Russian authorities detained Brittney Griner, an American basketball player, on drug charges, after she was stopped at an airport near Moscow. Since then, her detention has been repeatedly extended. Ms. Griner’s trial began on July 1; she has pleaded guilty.
Why was she detained? Officials in Russia said they detained Ms. Griner after finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage; a criminal case carrying a sentence of up to 10 years was later opened against her. Ms. Griner’s lawyers have argued that the star had a medical prescription for the hashish oil and mistakenly carried the drug into Russia.
Why was she in Russia? Griner was in Russia playing for an international team during the W.N.B.A. off-season. Trading rest for overseas competition is common among the league’s players for many reasons, but often the biggest motivation is money.
How is the U.S. approaching the situation? U.S. officials have said that Ms. Griner was “wrongfully detained,” adding that they were working aggressively to bring her home. Two days after Ms. Griner sent a handwritten letter to President Biden asking him not to forget about her, Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Cherelle Griner, the W.N.B.A. star’s wife, who had questioned whether the Biden administration is doing enough.
What are the possible outcomes? With her guilty plea making the verdict all but a foregone conclusion, Ms. Griner’s lawyers have been arguing for leniency. Experts say that her best hope may be for the Biden administration to suggest a prisoner swap with a Russian citizen being held by the United States. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on July 27 that the United States had put forward a proposal to gain her release in talks with Russia weeks earlier.
If a prisoner exchange occurs, they would join a long succession of Americans abducted or arrested abroad whose releases have underscored the delicate task of negotiating with adversarial countries.
Here are some of the most high-profile prisoner swaps between the United States and other countries:
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In a spy swap from 1962 that has since been depicted in a Steven Spielberg movie, the United States exchanged Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy, for Francis Gary Powers, an American pilot of a U‐2 spy plane that was downed over the Soviet Union in 1960. Eventually, he was freed in a dramatic exchange on a bridge shrouded with fog between East Germany and West Berlin.
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In 1985, the United States engaged in what an American official at the time called “the biggest spy swap” in memory. Four Eastern Europeans held in the United States for espionage were traded for 25 people imprisoned in East Germany and Poland.
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Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist who reported on the Soviet Union and was imprisoned in Moscow in 1986, was released from prison that year after the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to a prisoner swap. In return, the Soviet Union got Gennadi Zakharov, a Soviet physicist arrested in New York on espionage charges.
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In 2010, 10 Russians detained by the United States were swapped for four agents who had been held in Russian prisons after signing written confessions to espionage. To American officials, the exchange meant the end of a Russian spy ring; for Russians, it was a quick deal that resolved a potentially volatile situation.
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In 2014, the Taliban released Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held for five years after walking off his Army base in Afghanistan. He was later swapped for five Taliban detainees. From beginning to end, the case had been dogged by politics and controversy.
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Later that year, the United States released three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001. In exchange, Cuba announced that it released a U.S. intelligence agent who had been imprisoned for nearly 20 years. The exchange was done around the same time as the release of Alan P. Gross, a former U.S. government contractor from Maryland who was detained in Havana on Dec. 3, 2009, on humanitarian grounds.
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In 2016, Iran freed four Americans of Iranian descent, including a Marine veteran and Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter, in a delicately negotiated swap. The United States released seven Iranians who had been held on sanctions violations. Mr. Rezaian had been languishing in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since 2014 on vaguely defined charges of espionage that he denied.
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In 2019, Iran freed Xiyue Wang, an American graduate student who had been imprisoned in Tehran for more than three years on suspicion of being a spy, in exchange for Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist who was charged with violating American trade sanctions. Mr. Wang had been charged with espionage and locked in Evin Prison. U.S. officials denied that Mr. Wang was a spy.
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Trevor R. Reed — an ailing former U.S. Marine held for two years in Russia on what appear to be bogus charges of assault — was released in April in a prisoner swap involvinga Russian pilot convicted of cocaine trafficking charges. The exchange came as President Vladimir V. Putin announced the beginning of his invasion of Ukraine.