UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told the Russian foreign minister on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin must release the imprisoned Americans, specifically mentioning the journalists. Evan Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelanand accused the Russian leader of treating “people as bargaining chips.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield seized the opportunity when Moscow’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, chaired a UN Security Council meeting to promote multilateralism and democracy, and called for the release of Americans.
Arrests of Americans are increasingly common in Russia, where nine American citizens are currently being held. Tensions between the two countries have been rising, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“We will not rest until Paul and Evan come home, and Russia ends this barbaric practice of holding human pawns once and for all,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And that is a promise.”
Whelan, 53, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 and convicted of espionage in 2020. He is serving a 16-year prison sentence on the espionage conviction, which he and Washington say is baseless.
Thomas-Greenfield urged Lavrov to reverse a 2023 visit by Whelan’s sister Elizabeth to the Security Council.
“I asked Minister Lavrov to consider her unimaginable pain, not having seen her brother for four years, to look into her eyes and see her suffering,” the US ambassador said.
She looked at Lavrov in the presidential chair at the horseshoe-shaped council table and added: “And so, Minister Lavrov, I want to look into your eyes — while you look into your phone.”
Lavrov looked up briefly and nodded at the American ambassador.
US officials said that Russia refused to consider this including Whelan in the December 2022 prisoner exchange that freed the women’s basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout calling it an “one or nothing” decision.
Thomas-Greenfield reminded the Security Council of the earlier capture of Griner and Trevor Reeda former Marine who was arrested in 2019 for allegedly assaulting a police officer while intoxicated. Reed was released in a prisoner exchange in April 2022.
Other American citizens in Russian custody include a musician, an engineer, a sergeant and a journalist for the Tatar-Bashkir service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter and the first Western journalist to be arrested on suspicion of espionage in former Soviet Russia, was detained in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains, while on a reporting trip.
Like Whelan, Russia accused Gershkovich of espionage, which he, the Journal and the US deny.
The Russian prosecutor general’s office last month accused Gershkovich of “collecting classified information” on CIA orders about a military equipment factory 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, seen as a pro-Kremlin symbol since one of its managers publicly condemned anti-government protests in Moscow in 2011-12.
Gershkovich is due to appear in court on Thursday for the second hearing in his trial. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, though Russia has indicated it is open to a prisoner swap following a verdict.
Russian courts convict more than 99% of defendants. Prosecutors can appeal sentences they deem too lenient, and they can even appeal acquittals.