Paul Whelan marks five years in Russian detention

Paul Whelan marked five years in Russian detention on Thursday – a grim milestone that the ex-US Marine hoped he would never see.

“It’s surreal,” Whelan told CNN in a call from his remote Russian prison camp last week.

“It’s unbelievable to me that I’ve been here five years, that we’ve had two governments that haven’t been able to get me out of here,” he said.

In the half-dozen phone conversations Whelan has had with CNN since, he has expressed both confidence that the US government is working to secure his release and immense frustration that those efforts have not yielded success.

“I would ask President Biden to pull out the stops, cross the red lines, and do whatever needs to be done to get this case resolved and to get me home. If my life is not worth that effort, then I don’t know what is,” Whelan told CNN last week.

In recent phone calls, Whelan has voiced exasperation that the US claims his case is “a priority” but has not found a way to bring him home. He has on multiple occasions conveyed a sense of abandonment and concern he will be left behind again, citing the release of two other Americans from Russia in a prisoner swap last year.

“I am wondering what they’re going to do next. If there’s no diplomatic solution, what comes next? What are they prepared to do to honor that promise to get me home? If they’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping that something sticks and they can come up with a quick agreement, that’s not a very good policy,” Whelan told CNN in late November.

Whelan has also increasingly expressed fear for his safety, telling CNN last weekthat he was being targeted by an official at the prison camp after being assaulted by another prisoner.