In Ian Fleming’s fictional spy novel, The Living Daylights, James Bond is assigned sniper duty to help British agent 272, escape from East Berlin. Bond's duty is to safeguard his crossing into West Berlin by eliminating a top KGB assassin codenamed "Trigger." At the last minute, Bond realizes that Trigger is actually a beautiful blonde cellist — he shoots the weapon out of her hand instead of killing her. Bond muses that the mission will be considered a failure because he did not kill Trigger, and it could cost him his 00 number. That’s spy fiction. Spy non-fiction is not quite so dramatic. This week’s massive prisoner swap involving the US and Russia — including spies, sleeper agents, assassins, political prisoners and wrongly accused Americans — is just one in a long history of Cold War exchanges. The White House said the US had negotiated the trade with Russia, Germany and three other countries. It involved 24 prisoners, including 16 moving from Russia to the West and eight prisoners held in the West being sent back to Russia. According to a CBC News report, the first big prisoner exchange took place in 1962 on the Glienicke Bridge, which marked the border between the Eastern bloc and West Berlin and was commonly known as the "Bridge of Spies." The bridge would feature in several high-profile swaps during the Cold War and depicted in the 2015 film of the same name. The infamous Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet spy, was swapped for Francis Gary Powers, an American U2 pilot. It happened on a cold and clear morning in February 1962, when two groups of people gathered at each end of the narrow Glienicke Bridge.Powers had been shot down over Russia in 1960 while on a high-altitude photo reconnaissance mission, and was captured with a self-destructive coin coated with a deadly neurotoxin. On one side, they were dressed in US military police trenchcoats; on the other in Soviet-issue fur hats. Abel walked across the bridge towards the Soviet side; American pilot Gary Powers, arrested in the Soviet Union, walked past him towards West Germany. As part of the deal, Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student who had been detained in East Berlin on suspicion of spying, was also released.Everything went according to plan, but it took three years of negotiations for it to happen.Experts say this exchange is very different to the spy-for-spy swaps of the Cold War, and not just because of its size.Back then there was a mutual respect, an understanding that both sides were engaging in spying on the other and spy swaps were part of an informal agreement to make sure neither side’s operatives spent decades rotting in jail. But this week’s exchange was hardly one of like-for-like intelligence warriors.Evan Gershkovich was a journalist. So was Paul Whelan. Both have always denied the charges of spying: They were essentially western hostages, taken to exert pressure to secure the release of Russian prisoners abroad.That’s the Putin way.Journalists, opposition politicians and those who have fallen foul of Russia’s brutal treason laws were swapped for assassins, spies and criminals.The most recent mass prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington saw ten Russian sleeper agents detained in the US as part of the so-called “Illegals Program,” exchanged for four prisoners held in Russia. The swap, which took place in 2010 on the tarmac of Vienna International Airport, came after the FBI said a multi-year investigation had broken open a sleeper agent network of Russian spies planted in the US by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR.) One of the swapped individuals was Sergei Skripal, a colonel in Russia's Military Intelligence Service (GRU) who was convicted of high treason for working as a double agent for Britain.Skripal and his daughter Yulia were later the subjects of a botched assassination attempt by poisoning in Salisbury, England in 2018.Even if some Moscow-Washington tensions remain, these two-way crossings will continue to happen.What has not changed is the abiding utility they have for intelligence services. "It's based on mutual benefit," said John J. LeBeau, a former CIA official and Professor of National Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center in Germany. "It's much like prisoner exchanges in conventional warfare. It serves the interests of both sides," he told Reuters.In remarks to BBC radio, former British ambassador to Moscow Anthony Brenton suggested both sides' services would be keen to demonstrate to their respective employees that they would do their utmost to get them back if they were ever captured."These agencies are very keen to look after their people. And they have a mutual interest and mutual respect ... a mutual concern to not to be too damaging to each other," he said.Brenton said the US would be aware that if it helped Russia get its people back, Moscow might reciprocate "the next time" Washington wanted its own people back.But even then, there are limits. Traitors are rarely swapped. "A Russian officer working under cover is doing a job for his or her country. There is no stigma attached. They can be traded. Traitors are a different matter," said Robert Ayers, a former US intelligence officer. "You will never, ever see a trade involving an Aldrich Ames, or a (Robert) Hanssen of the FBI," said LeBeau, referring to former US officials who have spied for Moscow. Both did considerable damage and would be sentenced to life. In Russia, traitors are treated harshly. For added effect, they are executed in front of their peers. It is a lesson that is not taken lightly.— with files from Reuters, BBC & CBC
In Ian Fleming’s fictional spy novel, The Living Daylights, James Bond is assigned sniper duty to help British agent 272, escape from East Berlin. Bond's duty is to safeguard his crossing into West Berlin by eliminating a top KGB assassin codenamed "Trigger." At the last minute, Bond realizes that Trigger is actually a beautiful blonde cellist — he shoots the weapon out of her hand instead of killing her. Bond muses that the mission will be considered a failure because he did not kill Trigger, and it could cost him his 00 number. That’s spy fiction. Spy non-fiction is not quite so dramatic. This week’s massive prisoner swap involving the US and Russia — including spies, sleeper agents, assassins, political prisoners and wrongly accused Americans — is just one in a long history of Cold War exchanges. The White House said the US had negotiated the trade with Russia, Germany and three other countries. It involved 24 prisoners, including 16 moving from Russia to the West and eight prisoners held in the West being sent back to Russia. According to a CBC News report, the first big prisoner exchange took place in 1962 on the Glienicke Bridge, which marked the border between the Eastern bloc and West Berlin and was commonly known as the "Bridge of Spies." The bridge would feature in several high-profile swaps during the Cold War and depicted in the 2015 film of the same name. The infamous Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet spy, was swapped for Francis Gary Powers, an American U2 pilot. It happened on a cold and clear morning in February 1962, when two groups of people gathered at each end of the narrow Glienicke Bridge.Powers had been shot down over Russia in 1960 while on a high-altitude photo reconnaissance mission, and was captured with a self-destructive coin coated with a deadly neurotoxin. On one side, they were dressed in US military police trenchcoats; on the other in Soviet-issue fur hats. Abel walked across the bridge towards the Soviet side; American pilot Gary Powers, arrested in the Soviet Union, walked past him towards West Germany. As part of the deal, Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student who had been detained in East Berlin on suspicion of spying, was also released.Everything went according to plan, but it took three years of negotiations for it to happen.Experts say this exchange is very different to the spy-for-spy swaps of the Cold War, and not just because of its size.Back then there was a mutual respect, an understanding that both sides were engaging in spying on the other and spy swaps were part of an informal agreement to make sure neither side’s operatives spent decades rotting in jail. But this week’s exchange was hardly one of like-for-like intelligence warriors.Evan Gershkovich was a journalist. So was Paul Whelan. Both have always denied the charges of spying: They were essentially western hostages, taken to exert pressure to secure the release of Russian prisoners abroad.That’s the Putin way.Journalists, opposition politicians and those who have fallen foul of Russia’s brutal treason laws were swapped for assassins, spies and criminals.The most recent mass prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington saw ten Russian sleeper agents detained in the US as part of the so-called “Illegals Program,” exchanged for four prisoners held in Russia. The swap, which took place in 2010 on the tarmac of Vienna International Airport, came after the FBI said a multi-year investigation had broken open a sleeper agent network of Russian spies planted in the US by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR.) One of the swapped individuals was Sergei Skripal, a colonel in Russia's Military Intelligence Service (GRU) who was convicted of high treason for working as a double agent for Britain.Skripal and his daughter Yulia were later the subjects of a botched assassination attempt by poisoning in Salisbury, England in 2018.Even if some Moscow-Washington tensions remain, these two-way crossings will continue to happen.What has not changed is the abiding utility they have for intelligence services. "It's based on mutual benefit," said John J. LeBeau, a former CIA official and Professor of National Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center in Germany. "It's much like prisoner exchanges in conventional warfare. It serves the interests of both sides," he told Reuters.In remarks to BBC radio, former British ambassador to Moscow Anthony Brenton suggested both sides' services would be keen to demonstrate to their respective employees that they would do their utmost to get them back if they were ever captured."These agencies are very keen to look after their people. And they have a mutual interest and mutual respect ... a mutual concern to not to be too damaging to each other," he said.Brenton said the US would be aware that if it helped Russia get its people back, Moscow might reciprocate "the next time" Washington wanted its own people back.But even then, there are limits. Traitors are rarely swapped. "A Russian officer working under cover is doing a job for his or her country. There is no stigma attached. They can be traded. Traitors are a different matter," said Robert Ayers, a former US intelligence officer. "You will never, ever see a trade involving an Aldrich Ames, or a (Robert) Hanssen of the FBI," said LeBeau, referring to former US officials who have spied for Moscow. Both did considerable damage and would be sentenced to life. In Russia, traitors are treated harshly. For added effect, they are executed in front of their peers. It is a lesson that is not taken lightly.— with files from Reuters, BBC & CBC
