While in a Russian forced labor camp, Paul Whelan relayed information from fellow prisoners serving on the front lines in Ukraine to the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom through a secret burner phone, according to CBS. He spoke in his first major interview on “Face the Nation.” Since being released from Russian custody in a prisoner exchange in August.
Mr Whelan said about 450 prisoners at the camp had accepted contracts to work as mercenaries with Russia’s Wagner Group in Ukraine. They then passed the information back to him via “illegal cell phones,” which he passed on to four governments, Whelan said in an interview Sunday.
Mr Whelan told presenter Margaret Brennan that guards at the POW camp were “turning a blind eye”. “Prison officers in Russia are paid $300 to $400 a month. You give them a carton of cigarettes and they can do whatever they want.”
Brittney Greiner says Whelan reached ‘low point’ after Trevor Reed’s release
Mr. Whelan, a former Marine from Michigan, was released more than five years after he was arrested in Moscow on suspicion of spying for the United States. He is a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained on similar charges in early 2023. Evan Gershkovic and 14 other prisoners were released in exchange for eight Russians held in the United States, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland.
Russia claimed Mr Whelan was arrested “red-handed” in his room at Moscow’s Metropol Hotel with a USB drive containing classified information. But Paul’s older brother, David Whelan, told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, that Whelan was in a set-up orchestrated by Ilya Yatsenko, a close Russian friend who traveled to Russia for more than a decade. He said he was framed. Last interview.
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David Whelan said Yatsenko gave the drive to his brother, who thought it contained photos or something. Instead, agents entered Paul Whelan‘s hotel room and arrested him.
Paul Whelan was convicted in a closed court in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was taken to POW camp IK-17 in the Republic of Mordovia, an eight-hour drive from Moscow.
There, Whelan was cut off from the outside world, he told CBS. However, ambassadors and consular teams from the four countries that provided the information visited regularly, sometimes bringing mail from their homes.
Whelan remained a prisoner of war while other Americans who spent less time in Russian prisons were released in prisoner swaps. Basketball star Brittney Griner was released in late 2022, nine months after she was arrested on drug smuggling charges after two small vape pens and cannabis oil were found in her bag at a Moscow airport.
And Trevor Reed, also a former Marine, was traded in April 2022 for a Russian drug dealer in a US prison. Mr. Reid had been serving nearly three years in a Russian prison since his arrest in August 2019.
Mr. Whelan said in an interview with CBS that he was told he would be leaving with Mr. Reed. He then heard on the prison radio that the exchange had already taken place and that he was not included.
The news was “shocking,” he said. When Mr. Greiner was released a few months later and Mr. Whelan was left behind, he reached his “lowest point.” U.S. officials told Greiner there were no more Russian prisoners to trade for freedom.
Whelan’s release several months later was a “feat of diplomacy,” President Biden said at the time. When Mr. Whelan disembarked from the plane, he was greeted by the President and Vice President Harris.
Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Email cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. X Follow her at @CybeleMO.
