Major Prisoner Swap Does Not Point To Closer Links

Reports of a 'large-scale prisoner swap' between the United States and Russia, which is rumoured (but not confirmed) to include WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan, and anti-Putin activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, is unlikely to prove a signal of new lines of communication or a notable improvement in relations between Washington, D.C., and Moscow.

• Prisoner exchanges between the US and adversaries including Russia/USSR, Iran, Cuba, and the Taliban have taken place on a number of occasions, even when relations have been at their worst. Most notably, downed U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel in divided Berlin in 1962.
• On few of these occasions did the exchanges presage closer links between the US and the country in question. Given the US' staunch support for Ukraine and its consistent denounciation of President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, today's exchange is unlikely to alter the nature of communication between the two sides.