Who is former US Marine Paul Whelan, the Michigan-based corporate security executive part of Russia prisoner swap?

At the time of his arrest, Whelan was head of global security for a Michigan-based car parts supplier. Russian investigators said he was a spy for military intelligence and had been caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information.

While in prison, Whelan was attacked by another inmate, punched in the face and forced to defend himself at a sewing workshop, according to his brother. Last November, a Russian court rejected his request to serve his sentence in the US.

The US has designated Whelan as wrongfully detained. His case rose to the highest levels of the US government, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisting that Whelan faced “sham charges of espionage” and that Moscow was treating him differently from other detainees, inflicting needless suffering on his family.

Whelan had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Whelan told the BBC in December that US proposals for his release were like “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks”, calling the back and forth a “serious betrayal”. “The problem is, it’s my life that’s draining away while they do this,” he told the broadcaster.

Just weeks before his release, he told CNN he hoped US President Joe Biden would treat his case as if “his own son were being held hostage”.

Whelan is among the 26 prisoners released in a the Russia-US prisoner exchange.

Meanwhile, the White House has unveiled the names of individuals involved in the recent East-West prisoner exchange. Returning to the United States from Russia are three U.S. citizens—Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva—along with one legal permanent resident, Vladimir Kara-Murza.

In return, twelve German nationals and Russian political prisoners will be repatriated to Germany. The list includes Dieter Voronin, Kevin Lick, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyzhes, Ilya Yashin, Liliya Chanycheva, Kseniya Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, and Sasha Skochilenko.

Eight individuals are heading back to Russia: Vadim Krasikov (from Germany), Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva (from Slovenia), Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin (from Norway), Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov (from Poland), Roman Seleznev, Vladislav Klyushin, and Vadim Konoshchenock (all from the United States).

Additionally, a source familiar with the exchange confirmed that two children, who were not prisoners, were also part of the swap.

With inputs from agencies