Barter of Russians in prison for prisoners in Russia--Redemption of Captives

 Barter is alive and well in diplomacy, as evidenced by yesterday's multi-country multi-party prisoner swap.  Among the highlights was a journalist for a hitman.

The Washington Post has the story, with multiple headlines.

Biden: Prisoner swap ‘a feat of diplomacy’. U.S. reporter, others freed in complex, landmark, multicountry exchange with Russia

U.S., Germany trade convicted assassin to Russia for political prisoners in major swap The landmark prisoner swap freed Russians jailed in the West, including a convicted killer, . for U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza and others. By Shane Harris, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Mary Ilyushina and Souad Mekhennet, August 1, 2024

"In the largest prisoner exchange since the height of the Cold War, officials of the United States, Russia, Germany and other countries met on an airfield in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday and swapped at least 24 people — capping months of painstaking diplomacy involving negotiations at the highest levels of nine governments.

"Those released included a Russian assassin convicted of murder in Berlin; the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was accused of espionage without any known evidence; and several Russian dissidents whose only misdeed was demanding freedom and democracy or criticizing the war in Ukraine, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinions contributor.

"White House officials called it the largest and most complicated international prisoner exchange in decades, and one of the biggest diplomatic accomplishments of Joe Biden’s presidency... But the deal was also fraught, raising questions about the West’s willingness to deal with authoritarian regimes that imprison innocen..t people for negotiating leverage."

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All the exchanged prisoners were serving time, so this could be viewed as a bizarre variety of the time swaps in yesterday's post.

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Pidyon shvuyim (Hebrew: פִּדְיוֹן שְׁבוּיִים, literally: Redemption of Captives) is a religious duty in Judaism to free hostages. Historically, many captives have been redeemed, as when Jewish refugees were brought out from behind the Iron curtain with payments to the governments preventing them from emigrating.  (At equilibrium, this means Jews are often taken hostage, as  in the Hamas attack on October 7.)