Russian prisoner swap means state hostage-taking may well worsen

I am delighted that Vladimir Kara-Murza and Evan Gershkovich are tasting freedom, but this exchange can only embolden Vladimir Putin

I am delighted for Yevgenia Kara-Murza, the vivacious and charismatic wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza. Vladimir Putin had not only imprisoned her brave husband, but twice tried to murder him. 
Thursday’s prisoner swap, the largest for decades, means that Yevgenia will have her husband back, to nurse to health. Their friends in our Parliament will be delighted, and frankly relieved that he is still alive to taste freedom once more.
But there is a more troubling side to this story: from the way that Putin will milk this event at home, to the dark reality that the Russian leader will now see hostage-taking as – quite literally – a get out of jail free card for the assassins, saboteurs and spies his regime sends around the world, to murder, steal or cause chaos.
Putin’s priority on Thursday was to reassure Russia’s overseas espionage agencies – primarily the SVR and the GRU, his thuggish military intelligence – that he would get their people back, no matter what. 
Above all, the FSB security agency wanted Vadim Krasikov, organised crime killer turned state assassin. The SVR and the GRU would have wanted their “illegals” – spies living permanently in a country with fake IDs and backstories – returned by Slovenia and Norway too.
Others freed appeared to have overlapped organised crime and espionage, showing the deep connection between the two in Russia.
The swap will play big in the Russian media. Russian society, especially older citizens, will be reminded of the “glory days” of the Soviet Union, when it was the equal of the US. By reviving this kind of trade, Putin is showing himself to be the leader who stands up to the West and forces the US to listen.
But Thursday’s prisoner swap only threatens to make state hostage-taking by our enemies worse.
Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was an innocent man arrested, imprisoned, charged and found guilty by a Russian state that considers itself in conflict with the West. 
Krasikov was a hit-man imprisoned for murder. Putin will learn from this that his ruthlessness pays off. He will reckon he can always get his people out of Western prisons.
If Britain had captured, tried and imprisoned the Skrypal poisoners from GRU unit 29155, I fear that, at very least, they too would have been on Putin’s list. UK citizens might have been seized in Moscow or elsewhere as leverage.
Russia is not the only adversary to blatantly use state hostage-taking as a bargaining tool. Iran took Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe while China seized Canadians, as well as staging Jimmy Lai’s despicable show trial in Hong Kong.
I went to the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) on more than one occasion at the request of Kara-Murza’s friends and family, and also at the request of people connected with Alexei Navalny. When I asked about prisoner swaps, I was given a straight “no”. I understood the reason, although it was frustrating.
If this deal today had been done earlier, might it have included Navalny, a man who could have conceivably been a rival to Putin for power? Or was Putin always determined to murder Navalny, someone he hated so much he refused to use his name until he was dead?
Vladimir Kara-Murza was a British subject, so we could justifiably argue harder for him. David Cameron and the FCDO pushed his case with the US, as did other good people such as Bill Browder, the Putin critic, and Parliamentarians from all sides.
It is a good thing that there are fewer political prisoners in Russian jails on Thursday night. As Navalny’s wife Yulia tweeted on hearing the news: “No one should be held hostage by Putin, subjected to torture, or left to die in his prisons.”
Yet the reality of today is that Putin has, again, taken innocent people as hostages to get his spies and crooks home. Balancing our desire to see our people protected, while refusing to give in to this kind of blackmail, is a continuing conundrum for law-governed Western states.
The danger is that, as international rivalries grow more tense, state hostage-taking by our adversaries will become worse. There are no easy answers, but for families of those now free, there is at least the joy of seeing their loved ones safe, and alive.
Robert Seely was the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight 2017-2024. His book Total War, a Guide to Russia’s War in Ukraine and Across the Globe will be published by Biteback Publishing in February 2025.