Ex-CIA Agent: US-Russia Prisoner Swap, Like a Hollywood Movie. The war of spies returns

Anna Lombardi - La Repubblica

"It is the largest exchange of prisoners since the Cold War, achieved thanks to great diplomatic work, carried out in great secrecy. When the details come out, we'll be dazzled with movie stuff. Hollywood is certainly already thinking about it.

For the "Biden" administration, this is an important success. They are showing the world that they know how to do it. But the very fact that all this brings us back to the atmosphere of the espionage war of Stalin's time worries me a lot."

Robert Baer is the former super agent of the CIA, who with his memoirs in the book "Sleeping with the Devil. How Washington sold its soul for Saudi Arabian oil" inspired the character played by George Clooney in the Oscar-winning film Syriana.

An intelligence expert, today he is a respected television analyst. His most recent book, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy to Head the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia, tells how three female agents framed infiltrators who infiltrated the agency by investigating their bosses.

What bothers you?

"From the point of view of justice and human rights, it is good news. Innocent people have been released. But Vladimir Putin is also a winner. The freedmen were not spies and he knew it well. CIA agents in Russia all have diplomatic passports. If discovered and arrested they are always released immediately afterwards. Therefore, the Wall Street Journal reporter and others were hostages. Arrested for political calculation just like Brittney Griner. The exchange, alas, is a green light to do it again. Russians now regard foreigners and opponents as commodities. They know that the method works."

Were there alternatives other than negotiations?

"The Biden administration was right to negotiate. Those people could not be abandoned. But tougher responses than simple sanctions would be needed. But we, unlike Russia, are a state of law and do not commit acts of arbitrary piracy by arresting innocent people to use for nefarious purposes. We don't even have murderers like Vadim Krasikov, a dubious figure whom Putin absolutely wanted to take home."

Why did Putin care so much about Krasikov?

"It is another demonstration of his impunity. He sent an assassin into the heart of Europe and now he wins his release. Symbolically it is a powerful act.”

There are also Russian dissidents. Why did he let them go?

"Apparently they are not so important to the point that they need to be silent like Navalny. Outside of Russia, they won't bother him much."

A few weeks ago, Donald Trump said that Biden would never be able to bring Gershkovich and his friends home. What impact will it have on the election?

"Not at all. When Americans go to the polls, they only think about the economy and don't care about foreign policy successes, about which the average citizen understands nothing. It will mostly serve to puff up his chest in the debates and say that Biden wasn't so weak after all. These operations have significance elsewhere. To get them, the alliances and interests of many countries were intertwined, and the United States showed leadership in this operation. In light of the war in Ukraine, it is a comforting sign that Americans and Russians are talking to each other."

Will it have an impact on that war?

"We cannot know if there is anything in the agreement that has to do with Kiev. I don't know, a form of neutrality, preventing them from joining NATO. We will find out, perhaps, only much later."