Professional basketball player Brittney Griner was dropped by a plane on the runway of the San Antonio airport in Texas on Friday. The landing closes a nightmare of almost ten months during which the American was imprisoned since her arrest in Moscow for possession of cannabis oil. A few hours earlier, another plane was bringing arms dealer Viktor Bout back to Russia.
A crossover covering a prisoner exchange between the United States and the Kremlin regime. At the same time, Paul Whelan, also an American national and also imprisoned in Russia – in a penal colony in Mordovia – believed for a time to be part of the agreement. He did not hide his disappointment.
The day after the announcement of this market urbi and orbiVladimir Putin parades, convinced that he is in a position of strength while criticism of Joe Biden and his supporters erupts in Washington, accused of having given in to weakness, and of having abandoned Paul Whelan to his fate.
They are not exactly the same profiles
To fully understand the controversy, it is probably necessary to go back to the profiles of the two released. On the one hand, an American athlete convicted last August for possession and trafficking of cannabis for a simple vape cartridge containing cannabis oil. She was arrested in February in Moscow, according to this sentence, she would spend the next nine years in a Russian prison.
On the other hand, Viktor Bout, an arms dealer – an activity that earned him the nickname “merchant of death” – arrested in 2008 in Thailand by US agents and later sentenced in the United States to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking. and conspiracy to kill US citizens.
Suffice it to say that if the first course is more noble than the second, it does not present the same annoying power, nor the same serious character. In addition, Paul Whelan, a former Marine, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 for espionage. A leader he refutes but makes him a prisoner of a completely different status. However, it was he who remained behind bars.
The failure of Joe Biden is therefore obvious for a first obvious reason, exposed this Friday by General Jérôme Pellistrandi, BFMTV consultant for military issues: “The initial idea of the Americans was to exchange the two against Viktor Bout. one who is still in Russian prisons.” “It is a symbolic victory for Vladimir Putin to have managed to snatch Viktor Bout ‘from the clutches of the evil American,'” the officer further analyzed.
Putin and the Russian media rejoice
The thing did not go unnoticed by the Russian president, who was parading this Friday. During a press conference held this Friday in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin first assured that the operation was an American initiative, hinting that his interlocutor was decidedly desperate, and continued: “Negotiations continue. In fact, they have never stopped “. A compromise has been found, we do not rule out continuing this work in the future”.
Meanwhile, the Russian powerhouse intends to make the most of it. The media close to the Kremlin have followed Viktor Bout step by step since his release: get on the plane, get off the plane, reunion.
This processing goes beyond mere journalistic interest. It has a political purpose, according to Jean-Didier Revoin, BFMTV correspondent in Russia: “The message conveyed by these images is that Russia is not abandoning its people. An important message at a time when the army is in full operation to rescue to the Russian-speaking minorities of Donbass according to Russia’s narrative”.
Russian microphones also picked up the first confidences from the “merchant of death”. And these are vitriolic. Attacking “Westerners”, he railed: “They think they can destroy us again and divide Russia.” “The fact that Viktor Bout attacked the West as soon as he arrived reinforces national unity,” General Jérôme Pellistrandi commented here.
The American press judges Joe Biden harshly
The same cannot be said on the other side of the Bering Strait. Because the United States does not seem so much, tearing itself apart in the face of an equation that is considered too unbalanced.
In the conservative media, the anger is clear. Recalling Viktor Bout’s criminal pedigree, a Fox News columnist slammed mercilessly: “So this is the guy Joe Biden got out of jail, the international arms dealer who arms terrorist groups and drug cartels.” drugs. (…) So, at all levels, it’s an expensive prisoner exchange.”
And this analysis is not a passing fad in the pro-Trump press. The most weighted good Washington Post lamented in an editorial:
“The United States has not grabbed the right side of the sleeve. Bout’s conviction in 2011 came after a terrible effort by US intelligence, diplomatic agencies and police; exchanging such a dangerous prisoner for a more obvious intelligence worthless athlete is, like or not, an affront to American justice.” Finally, the newspaper laments that this lowest bidder sets a precedent.
CNN acknowledges on its site: “This is the most unequal exchange, concluded at the most unlikely time.”
Republicans are up in arms
It should come as no surprise, then, that Republicans torpedoed the deal, as Forbes listed. For Donald Trump, the market “only goes one way” and would even be “a shameful and unpatriotic slight to the United States.” Kevin McCarthy, who heads the group of Republicans in the House of Representatives, for his part, described the act as “a gift for Vladimir Putin”, judging the absence “inconceivable”. at least of Paul Whelan in the negotiations.
Rick Scott and Lindsey Graham, two Republican representatives, also challenged for the presidency. For Rick Scott, the government acted “weakly and abjectly” by freeing Viktor Bout. And Lindsay Graham was slightly more restrained: “It is a bitter potion to swallow when we see that we are freeing the ‘merchant of death’ Viktor Bout’ while Mr Whelan remains in Russia.”
fool’s market for everyone
Defeat in the open field for Joe Biden and total victory for Vladimir Putin, then? Not really. On the one hand, the latter also seems to be exposed, according to the CNN analyst: “Yes, it is a victory for Putin, but a victory that reveals his weakness and his need to satisfy the military elite on which he relies.”
A “weakness” that the author sees in the contrast between the Russian’s belligerent speech and his ease in accepting compromises. As for the need to please the military, CNN relies on Viktor Bout’s closeness to the Russian officers’ gratin.
However, according to our consultant, General Jérôme Pellistrandi, Viktor Bout’s interpersonal skills and connections should not be exaggerated now: “I think he is much less important than he was, between the 1990s and 2010. Some ten years later, He still lost most of his networks and then he was replaced, and replaced by Evgeni Prigokhine (the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, editor’s note)”.
In a sign that the big fish caught by the Kremlin in the United States may not be of such good size, the New York Times claims this Friday night that it only appeared as a default solution. According to information collected by the New York newspaper from collaborators of the US executive, the Russians had a special interest in releasing a certain Vadim Krasikov, who has been in prison since he murdered a Chechen veteran in the middle of a Berlin park in the middle of the day in 2019. .
But the man is in custody in Germany. Given the complications of the case, the case of Viktor Bout ended up winning. As if there is basically no winner at the end of this duel and, at best, a mere farcical diplomatic victory for a dictator struggling to win on the front lines.
Source: BFM TV
