The movement inside Russia of several high-profile political prisoners in recent days is fueling speculation that a prisoner swap with Western countries may be close.
Lawyers and relatives of at least eight individuals say they seem to have been moved from detention facilities across Russia. Those detained had been jailed for criticizing the Kremlin or spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military.
At the same time, legal action by Belarus and Slovenia on foreign nationals has added to speculation in Western media that a multicountry swap, potentially involving Russia, the United States and Germany, may be in the works.
Among those detained in Russia whose location is currently unknown are former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan; British Russian activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who contributes to The Washington Post; and Liliya Chanysheva, who worked closely with late opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Whelan is serving a 16-year prison sentence on espionage charges that he denies. His lawyer told the Interfax news agency she cannot contact him, adding, "There are rumors of a possible exchange."
The Post reported late Wednesday that prison officials had confirmed Kara-Murza had been moved from a prison colony but would not say where he was taken. The columnist is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being accused of treason because he criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine.
While some analysts believe the disappearances may be a sign of an imminent prisoner swap, others, like Russia expert Keir Giles, are more skeptical.
"We need to bear in mind that the people that we see reported are only the tip of the iceberg, and there are so many others that don’t get that worldwide media attention," Giles, who works at the British think tank Chatham House, told VOA.
"To be disappeared within the system for a period of days or weeks or even longer is not that unusual," Giles added. "It’s hard to tell what within the Russian prison system is deliberate cruelty and what is simply the result of inefficiency and incompetence, but the net effect, of course, on the victims is exactly the same."
Navalny, for instance, was abruptly moved in secret from a prison in central Russia to one above the Arctic Circle in December 2023. The move took 20 days, Giles said. The opposition leader died at the prison in February.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment for this story.
Other political prisoners missing this past week include German Russian citizen Kevin Lik; opposition activist Ksenia Fadeeva; anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko; and critical politician Ilya Yashin.
The online Russian media outlet Agenstvo reported that at least six special Russian government planes had flown to and from the regions where some of these prisoners were located. VOA could not immediately verify that.
Their disappearances come on the heels of other developments.
In Belarus on Tuesday, President Alexander Lukashenko unexpectedly pardoned Rico Krieger, a German who had been sentenced to death on terrorism charges. Belarus and Russia are close allies.
And on Wednesday, a Slovenian court sentenced two Russians to time served for espionage and said they would be deported to Russia.
Sergei Davidis doesn’t think the timing can be a coincidence. He is the head of the Political Prisoners Support Program and a member of the board at the Russian human rights group Memorial.
Memorial's co-chair, Oleg Orlov, is among the political prisoners to recently vanish.
"It seems that there is no other reasonable explanation than expectations of some swap," Davidis told VOA from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin would need to pardon those involved in any potential swap as a formality.
The Daily Beast reported that the swap would take place in Ankara, Turkey, and that a "second part" would potentially occur in Doha.
Putin has previously signaled he would be willing to trade Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for a Russian man named Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Chechen dissident in Berlin.
Gershkovich is one of two American journalists imprisoned in Russia. The other is Alsu Kurmasheva. Both were convicted in secret trials on July 19 on charges that are widely viewed as bogus.
Russia state media, meanwhile, reported that four Russians jailed in the United States had disappeared from a database of prisoners that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons operates. It named them as Alexander Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenko and Vladislav Klyushin.
Commenting on remarks made by Putin earlier this year about a possible swap for Gershkovich, Giles said, "It is not a process that is pretending particularly hard to be legitimate. It’s just a straightforward extortion."
The United States and Russia have been engaging in prisoner swap negotiations for months.
"The United States continues to be focused on working around the clock to work to get our wrongfully detained American citizens home," State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told VOA at a Wednesday press briefing.
When asked about any updates on a potential prisoner swap, Patel said he had no updates.
Prisoner swaps are typically cloaked in secrecy.
Although the U.S. government has previously faced criticism for exchanging legitimate Russian criminals for innocent Americans, hostage advocate Diane Foley maintained that it is Washington’s duty to do everything it can to protect its citizens.
"They need to have the moral clarity to recognize that their citizen’s life is their responsibility. It’s their responsibility to do all they can to prioritize that life," Foley told VOA.
Foley founded the Foley Foundation after the abduction and killing in Syria of her son, American journalist James Foley, in 2014. She says the U.S. has made some improvements in assisting families, but the burden still largely falls on relatives whose loved ones are unjustly held abroad.
Since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has cracked down hard on anything perceived as criticism of the Kremlin, leading to the arrests of scores of activists and journalists. In late 2023, rights group Memorial estimated there were nearly 1,000 political prisoners jailed in Russia.
The biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War occurred in 2010 and included 14 people in total.
Some information in this report came from Reuters.
