Tense exchange: Russia’s prisoner swap

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. America's defence secretary has been touring Asia to beef up alliances and military strength in the region, including a new warfighting command in Japan. Our correspondent went with him. And every year in Britain, there is a census not of people, but of swans, specifically swans that belong to the king. Yes, you heard that right. It's an 800-year-old ceremony and it takes five days. Swan upping. You might love it if you tried it. But first, It could have been a scene from a Cold War spy thriller. Seven aircraft from six countries carrying dissidents, spies, mercenaries and journalists, all flying into a neutral country. Their passengers disembarking before being traded and boarding jets bound for home. But this wasn't a movie. It was the largest prisoner exchange between the west and Russia since the Cold War. Among those released was Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed him and another two Americans back onto US Soil. Their relief was one shared by friends, family and colleagues watching the images from all over the world.

So I'm still getting over seeing these images of the plane on the tarmac at Andrews Air Base, seeing Evan, the US President.

Oliver Carroll is the Economist correspondent in Ukraine.

Evan's put us through a lot of worry just to get Joe Biden's contact. I mean, I joke, but you couldn't fail to be moved by it all. Just the press conference which Joe Biden put together as they were waiting for that plane to arrive, where he sang Happy Birthday to the daughter of Alsu Khurmashova. You know, covering the world at the moment, such days, they're really rare and you have to take them when they come.

Were there signs that this exchange was in the works?

It was never over until it was over. But there certainly were signals that big exchange was was in the works. First of all, we saw with Evan's sentencing, which as I reported at the time, was brought forward unusually, which has in the past at least, tended to predate releases. And then we saw the pardoning of Rico Krigler, a German mercenary who had somehow found his way into Belarus and been sentenced to death. And then we saw prisoners held in Russia starting to go missing, which I either was a good sign or it meant they were being brought together for some kind of torture session. Who knows? But it did look certainly before yesterday that everything was coming together. So great news, Ollie.

You've talked about Evan before on the show. Who else was on that plane out of Russia with him?

So the Exchange basically involved 24 people, 16 of those going west, eight returning to Russia, plus two miners. There are various categories of the people who were on board that plane. There were US citizens and green card holders, journalists, as we've spoken about, but also, interestingly, dissidents and Russian opposition figures with either Russian citizenship or joint citizenship. There is particularly two figures, Vladimir Karmuza and Ilay Yasin, who might now be considered the real leaders of the Russian opposition. And they had been held in Russian prisoners with these demonstratively long prison sentences. We saw Paul Whelan. He'd been the longest held detainee. He'd been in prison since 2018. A U.S. marine who essentially was arrested when he was in Moscow attending a friend's wedding. We saw the youngest prisoner, 19 year old Kevin Lick, who was the youngest ever person to be convicted for treason. He was 17 at the time. And the oldest, 71 year old Ole Gorlov, a heavyweight of the Russian dissident movement and an activist since the Soviet era. And we knew from back in February when the colleagues of the killed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was essentially murdered in prison, basically outlined how the deal was supposed to look. It was supposed to be Alexei Navalny headlining the list going westward, but pretty much the same list going eastward.

Do you know anything about how these former captives are doing?

Well, I mean, judging by the footage we can see that Evan's lost a bit of weight, but he still is the Evan you know I know and love. Generous, full spirited, all right, kind of good guy. We saw Paul Whelan also appeared to be in pretty good health. There had been rumors he had been of poor health recently, but he looked.

Okay, you know, it didn't feel real until we were flying over England. I'm a British citizen, Irish citizen, Canadian and American. So as we came over England and I Looked down, you know, that's when it became real. So looking forward to seeing my family down here and just recuperating from five years, seven months and five days of just absolute nonsense by the Russian government.

Karamoza, we didn't see. We know he has had health problems. We did see images of a phone call released by the White House which showed the first exchanges, in particular Karamurza with his family.

We're in the Oval Office.

No word is strong enough for this. I was sure I'm going to die in prison. I don't believe what's happening. I still think it's a. I still think I'm sleeping in my prison cell in Omsk instead of hearing your voice. But I just want you to know that you've done a wonderful thing by saving so many people. I think there are 16 of us on a plane again, I still can't believe is happening.

I'm surprised amongst those you mention to hear that the opposition leaders were released the importance of Karamazar and Yashin. And I was also surprised that Navalny might once have been on that list had he not died in February, sadly. Why would Putin release such important opposition figures?

Well, the key is what Putin gets out of the exchange. And the most valuable asset which we talked about before is a man called Vadim Krasikov, who was an FSB colonel, a colonel in Russia's security agency, who had been jailed in Germany after murdering a Chechen rebel in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019. It's really key to understanding that Putin has always made a virtue of returning his ilk. Spies and scoundrels of all kinds. And you saw with the red carpet treatment which they got when they arrived in Moscow. When you come airport yesterday, it's key. If you want to recruit people to your intelligence services, you need to show that you're ready to fight for them. And that's been a really important part of everything that Putin has done as president. You know, Russia will have been pleased that it's got essentially a transactional deal. And I know that there's been some talk about this perhaps being a harbinger for a bigger deal with respect to Ukraine. I'm personally not sure that's true. I think this is a separate deal done on the military and the security level. But I think we also should be fairly clear that this is not a story which is over yet. In 2010, the last big exchange, it was 11 for 11 of the 11 who were sent westwards. One of them included Sergei Skripal. Who, as we know, eight years later, was then poisoned with Novichok nerve agent. And actually, one of the things which struck me in all the reaction in Russia was a telegram message by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president, and he said, just find it. Let the traitors fervorously find themselves new names and quickly hide and witness protection programs. So, you know, the hostage exchange program is a business which always favors hostage takers. And one of the things, certainly I feared with some of the exchanges in the past, most notably in 2023 when we saw a basketball player exchanged for a very renowned arms trader, that it in fact encouraged more hostage taking. One of the big plus points of this last exchange was that the number heading out of Russia was twice as much as the number heading towards Russia. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, did indicate just how difficult it had been for the German states to part with essentially an assassin who'd been arrested on their soul after such a heinous act. The exchange obviously should have been about Navalny. And the fact that, you know, the Germans were interested in the first place was basically because of Navalny, and they had to be persuaded later that this was still worth doing. Putin, you know, he's got his men back, he's shown he can get them out of trouble if they do his dirty work, but at the same time, he's had to pay some price for it. I mean, Karmuza, frankly, I don't think has got much of a political future with Ilya Yasin. You've got someone who's young, who's got a lot of fight in him. And he was Boris Nimsol's best mate. He's quite eloquent. He used to be very angry. He's calmed down a lot. And he looks like a leader. I mean, Kurummuza is a little bit more sort of cerebral, a little bit more reserved. He's not as charismatic. Everyone was expecting him to die in jail.

Frankly, the timing on this is surprising. It's pre election. The war in Ukraine is still raging. You don't think this precedes any kind of ceasefire deal? So why do you think it did happen now?

I think the Russians were, on one level, testing. They were seeing if the Americans were ready to engage in a transactional deal. And they were. But I also think, as I said in the last time I spoke to you about Eben, I did fear that they were likely to leave it to a point where they might have felt they had a better deal with Donald Trump. But I think with all the excitement and drama of the US at the moment. First of all, it's unclear who's going to win. But second of all, I think they wanted to lock in this deal while they could. And you know, the people who boarded that plane westward yesterday, that isn't the extent of Russia's political prisoners. I was thinking about some of the other people left behind. I was thinking about Alexei Navalny who didn't make it. I was thinking about another journalist. It wasn't even all the political journalists being held in Russia. A good colleague of ours, Vanya Safronov, is still in prison, jailed essentially for writing about military corruption. So, you know, I think Putin realized that there's plenty more chips he can play with. Unfortunately, as I say, this isn't the end of the deal. This game is going to continue. It's one of those things. It's impossible to avoid this moral hazard. But, you know, the key, as I think President Biden said, was, you know, you can't let innocent people languish in jail. If you have a chance, you really need to make sure that you can do everything to bring them out.

Ollie, thank you. It's great to talk to you. Really appreciate it.

And a great day to be speaking to you, too.

United States will upgrade the US Forces Japan to a joint force headquarters with expanded missions and operational responsibilities.

On Sunday, on the first part of his trip around the Western Pacific, America's Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a new warfighting command in Japan.

This will be the most significant change to US Forces Japan since its creation, one of the strongest improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years.

Since the end of the Second World War, American military forces have been present on Okinawa, a 650 kilometer flight from the Chinese coast. But for decades, that base has been on a peacetime footing. That has now changed. Japan's Foreign Minister, Yoko Kamekawa, spoke of China's military actions in the region as a serious concern, and clearly America agrees.

I was flying with Lloyd Austin, who was making his 11th tour of the Indo Pacific.

Anton LaGuardia is the economist diplomatic editor.

We landed at the Yokata air base outside Tokyo and a brilliant way to avoid Tokyo traffic. We took three Black Hawk helicopters that lifted us into central Tokyo, whereupon a police convoy of white gloved policemen escorted us through the city, past knots of protesters and various traffic jams, And then again in Manila. When we flew in much more congested, city police had a much harder time pushing the convoy through gridlocked Manila traffic. But they did succeed with a Lot of wailing sirens. We substantially added to the traffic problem with a 33 vehicle convoy. And that trip was intended to strengthen America's network of alliances all along the so called first island chain, which runs from Japan down to Malaysia.

And why is the US so particularly concerned now? To strengthen security and strengthen alliances in East Asia.

The process has been going on for a few years under this administration. It's a response to the growing military strength of China, which America and its friends in the region are increasingly worried about. For instance, the Chinese Navy is now larger numerically than the American Navy is. So America needs its allies evermore. And they are doing various things to strengthen each other and strengthen themselves. Really what that involves is strengthening its allies along the first island chain. And in the middle of that chain is Taiwan, which is the likeliest flashpoint. And if America decided to intervene, that would turn into a major war between America and China that is bound to involve the neighbors in some way.

America's had bases in Japan for a long time. In what ways is it now strengthening those?

The main thing that was announced was the creation of a so called Joint Force Headquarters. This is a headquarters that is a war fighting command that would be in charge of coordinating the activities of American forces in exercises then, in planning and ultimately, should it ever come to it, in fighting a war. Now this is a big change because the main war fighting command for the Americans in the Indo Pacific is all the way back in Hawaii, more than 7,000 kilometers away from where the fighting is likely to take place. Having a headquarters forward has dangers. They're much closer to the action. They're much within the range of many hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese missiles. But at the same time, in a world where communications are likely to be degraded, it's very hard to try and command your troops from the other side of the ocean, in essence.

And has it taken a lot of persuasion to get Japan to strengthen its forces? Japan has shrunk away from military force since the end of the Second World War. And this is a real shift in its attention, isn't it?

Yes, it is. The Japanese announced plans to almost double defense spending by 2027. They're also buying all sorts of new weapons, including long range strike missiles that can reach a Chinese mainland. They call them Counter Strike. The interesting thing here is that to operate them, the Japanese would need a lot of help from the Americans in terms of command and control, in terms of intelligence, to find targets and to strike them. So they need to coordinate more closely. And the Japanese, for the first time have created their own American style joint headquarters, which fuses air, land, sea and other forces to make a more effective whole. So, in part, this new American headquarters is intended to mirror what the Japanese are doing and to coordinate more closely with them.

Taiwan is obviously the flashpoint that everyone's anxious about. How does the new joint command fit into that potential threat?

Taiwan is a thing that is on everyone's mind, but nobody can speak of clearly. So we don't know actually what this headquarters will do in terms of the defense of Taiwan should America choose to intervene. America is not obliged to intervene, but it gives itself that option. And President Biden has said repeatedly that he would. The Japanese say things like they have an interest in maintaining the status quo around Taiwan, but they don't say what they would do if it came to war. And nor do the Philippines, who are the southern neighbor of Taiwan. And we also don't know how any of these people will be able to fight alongside Taiwan, assuming it does defend itself robustly. And one of the many things the Americans are trying to do is to supply weapons and provide aid to Taiwan so that it becomes more of a porcupine and can therefore hold out longer.

And what's your assessment at the end of this trip, Anton? Is all this preparation aimed at preventing war from breaking out, or. Or do you think that the US Thinks that it's readying for something that's inevitable?

I think the two are connected. The principal aim is to deter an invasion of Taiwan and particularly deter China from thinking it can do so quickly and painlessly. And to do that, it needs to show it is ready to fight a war and has got the wherewithal, the command systems, the equipment forward and so on to deny China a quick victory. Of course, nobody knows whether America would intervene. It would be very costly and very painful. And most Americans know little about Taiwan and probably couldn't find it on a map. And if Donald Trump became president, he has all but said that he wouldn't defend Taiwan, which is why I think the Biden administration has been keen to create as many facts on the ground as possible in a way that makes it hard for a future administration to undo.

And have they done that? Anton, is it Trump proof?

Nothing ultimately is Trump proof, because alliances depend on trust, and trust depends on believing that your main protector, which is the United States, is going to turn up to defend you. And you can never be sure of that with Donald Trump.

Thank you so much, Anton. It's great to talk to you. Tell me where we can hear more about this, it's obviously a huge subject.

So I was in the Philippines and Taiwan earlier this year and we reported on our travels for our Drum Tower podcast. And you'll also hear more from my colleague Su Lin Wong, who was on a tourist boat in the South China Sea being harassed by the Chinese.

And that's on our sister show, the Weekend Intelligence. Thanks again, Anton.

Thank you.

King Charles iii, the most high, most mighty and most excellent monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of his other realms and territories, has many grand titles, some sensible and many of them not.

Catherine Nixie is a Britain correspondent for the Economist.

He is Head of the Armed Forces and he is Defender of the Faith. He is Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and he is Chieftain of the Braemar Gathering. He is also Signor of the Swans, a title which tends to be forgotten partly because it's completely ridiculous and partly because it doesn't matter unless you're a swan. Because as Seigneur of the Swans, Charles III has droits over you. And at this time of year he likes to exercise them. Which is why on a hot summer day, I took out a rowing boat to follow six small wooden boats as they made their way along the River Thames. This is a totally different Thames to the great grey river that slides through London. This river is much smaller, much gentler, much greener. A few miles upstream, punts are taken to the water in Oxford. A few miles downstream is the house that is said to have inspired Toad of Toad Hall. And it feels like that too. Here there is sun on the water, there is wind in the willows. It's basically perfect. And here is also where the annual Royal Swan upping census takes place, which is a five day long, 800 year old ceremony in which mature swans and signets are caught and counted for the King. And mature men dress up as sailors in scarlet blazers and Breton tops and shout all up whenever they see a swan. What this has to do with the King of England is complicated.

The swan uppers were entertained at Magna Carta island by Sir Patrick Hannon mp, and the King's Swan master made a speech. Ladies and gentlemen, the simple explanation of.

Swan upping is this, that every year we come up to mark the swans.

Belonging to the Crown, the Vintners Company and the Dyers Company.

The Crown birds are not marked the present time. The vintners by two marks, one on each side of the beak and the.

Dyers by one mark on the right side.

Europe's monarchs are basically all gone. The powers of those few kings and queens that remain are watered down, and in the case of Charles iii, weirdly watery. He might have lost almost all his other powers, but he still has the right to claim Britain's Wales, great sturgeons and mute swans as his own swan.

Up in history dates right back to the 12th century.

David Barber is the king's swan marker.

It was a very, very important food in that time.

Once a year, we travel upriver. We will check all the welfare of.

The swans and we will lift the young cygnets from the water. We will weigh them, measure them and.

Check them for any injuries.

Once upon a time, the royal swan markers counted the swans because the king liked to eat them. But today, swans are a protected species, so no one can eat them, even the king. And the census is done instead for education and conservation purposes. Mr. Barber says he wants to modernize swan upping. Although given that he's called the king swan marker, and given that he's wearing a cap with a swan's feather in it, the pace of his modernisation appears to be gentle. I watched as they took the swans from the river and another swan upper I spoke to explained what they were doing.

We are just weighing the signets. So that is 4.6.

4.6 kilograms, yeah.

We weigh them, measure their beaks and just check them to make sure they're healthy and safe and then no danger or damage.

Do they mind that?

Sorry, I don't think they mind it, but it's not their choice, as in.

They don't really have much to do about it, so.

They'Re better when they're together, which is why we try and catch the whole. The whole family.

But they get upset if it's just one.

If they're separate, they're not happy. So let's try and keep four. Exactly.

Swans don't exactly love being upped. For a swan, being upped is a bit of a downer. Prince Harry once observed that swans are grumpy birds and their mood is definitely not improved. If you catch them, hold down their wings, tie their feet and take them out of the river. A swan can't break a man's arm. Baba says that that's a myth. But they can definitely give you a nasty bruise. The trick, as one swan upper explained to me, is to be subtle in other respects. Subtlety is definitely not the Swannupa's strong suit. They start each day with a patriotic toast to the king. On their boats, there are pennants and there are flags. The overall effect is less like an environmental study than as if the cast of the Pirates of Penzance had taken to the river in Punt. The Swans might not like it that much, but this is for environmentalism and it is for the King of England, so they don't get that much choice in the matter.

Something.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill. Our deputy editor is John Joe Devlin and our sound of sound designer is Will Rowe. Our senior producers are Rory Galloway and Sarah Lanyuk. Our senior creative producer is William Warren. Our producers are Maggie Khadifa and Benji Guy. And our assistant producers are Henrietta McFarlane and Kunal Patel. With extra production help this week from Elna Schutz, we'll all see you back here for the weekend. Intelligence tomorrow.