President Biden personally thanked more than 100 members of the U.S. government earlier this month for their help in negotiating the recent prisoner exchange with Russia.

The massive deal brought Michigan native Paul Whelan back to the U.S after being held in Russia since the end of 2018 on charges of espionage that both he and federal officials say are bogus.

Some experts believe the exchange could set a model for how nations engage in such so-called “hostage diplomacy” in the future.

Northwestern University Assistant Professor Danielle Gilbert works with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on matters concerning wrongful detentions.

She says duplicating the kind of deal that gained Whelan’s release will not be easy.

Listen: Why the deal that freed Whelan, Gershkovich may be hard to duplicate

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Danielle Gilbert: These are extremely difficult negotiations. Not only are we talking about some of the fiercest adversaries that have to come to the table to come to an agreement in terms of the United States and Russia; but also the challenge of bringing together all of these other parties, getting other governments to agree to put their own prisoners on the line to participate in this complex multi-party swap. This was extremely advanced negotiation that took place at the highest levels of government over the course of quite some time. And that all of it was held as such a tight secret until the actual release was also pretty spectacular.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: There are reports that Germany wanted Putin opponent Alexei Navalny as part of any deal that would include Whelan in exchange for a Russian assassin that was held by Germany. And then Navalny passed away a few days after the deal was supposedly struck. Yet it seemed Germany’s willingness to make a deal continued and that seemed to open the pathway to the eventual exchange. Does it surprise you that Germany would actually, finally partake in such an effort?

DG: Vladimir Putin and his government continually pushed for the release of Vadim Krasikov, the FSB assassin who was imprisoned in Germany for murder. But the United States government didn’t have the power to release Krasikov, that was something that was only up to Chancellor Scholz and the government of Germany. So that took some really difficult conversations behind the scenes. President Biden was drawing on the friendship and the alliance with Germany, speaking to Chancellor Scholz and representatives at the highest level of the German government. And not only about the importance of their alliance, their partnership and friendship with the U.S. and opposition to what Russia was doing in this particular case, but also ensuring that the ultimate deal — the prisoner swap — included Russian dissidents, political opponents to Vladimir Putin. That those people would be released from detention and they’d be able to come to Germany. Countries like the United States and its Western democratic partners and allies are being targeted by autocratic states like Russia.

QK: Beyond the number of nations involved in the swap, the sheer multitude of prisoners involved in the exchange seems to be far different from what one would normally think of in a hostage deal, which is sterotypically a one-for-one prisoner swap. Do you think similar hostage deals that could happen in the future are also likely going to have to include many, many more countries and in effect “enlarge the pie” of what is being offered in any exchange?

DG: It’s a great question. It remains to be seen. I think in past prisoner swaps with Russia, we really have seen that one-for-one dynamic. Russia wrongfully detains an American and they demand the specific release of a Russian who was arrested in the United States. And those deals, while they might be controversial, are about as straightforward as they can get in terms of prisoner swaps. This one (involving Whelan) was extremely complicated because of the number of countries involved, the number of prisoners, the complicated choreography. In an ideal world, the countries that are frequent targets of this kind of attack are going to start really working together to deter the practice going forward.

Read more: Family of Novi man released from Russian prison say they can finally exhale

QK: One of the criticisms of the exchange has been that it rewards Russia and by extension any other country that would follow suit for taking Americans hostage that the government believes could be used as trade bait. How do you think the U.S. can combat that kind of approach?

DG: That requires coordination among allies, drawing on the tools of the international system. How can they punish a state like Russia for engaging in this practice? There might be sanctions on hostage takers, it might result in prosecution or other means of drawing on a country’s own legal system. And thinking about ways to exclude Russia from the things that it might enjoy in the international system.

QK: The U.S. is already involved in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. There’s few other examples that would be testier for governments to be dealing with than an ongoing war. And yet this deal seems to have achieved Russia’s goals. So in the future would actions like sanctions be sufficient? Is there something else that countries can do to try to deter this type of hostage-taking?

DG: That’s the real million dollar question. It’s the question that gets me up in the morning. Government officials in the United States and a lot of other frequent targets, countries like Canada, the U.K. and Australia are putting their best minds to work to figure this out. The commission that I’m a part of at CSIS is also working on this question and hoping to make recommendations to the next U.S. presidential administration on how they might think about deterring this practice going forward. One big part of it has to do with prevention. Let’s say the U.S. government can’t put more sanctions on these countries that are already so heavily sanctioned. Well, what can the U.S. government do to prevent its citizens from traveling to places like Russia in the first place? How can they increase education? How can they engage the private sector that requires employees to travel to make sure that Americans who are going to these places are aware of the risks that they might be facing, understand other countries’ laws and hopefully stop traveling to places that the U.S. government strongly urges Americans not to visit, like Russia.

Use the media player above to listen to the interview with Danielle Gilbert.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive prisoner swap involving the United States and Russia was underway Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said.

The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details had not been publicly disclosed, did not specify who is included in the deal. But Americans considered by the U.S. to be wrongfully detained in Russia include Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Both had been convicted of espionage charges that the U.S. government considered baseless.

In a statement posted online, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President and CEO Stephen Capus acknowledged media reports that a journalist working for the broadcaster, Alsu Kurmasheva, would be released as part of the deal.

Capus said the broadcaster welcomed ’’news of Alsu’s imminent release and are grateful to the American government and all who worked tirelessly to end her unjust treatment by Russia.” Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, was convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

The deal would be the latest exchange in the last two years between Washington and Moscow, including a December 2022 trade that brought WNBA star Brittney Griner back to the U.S. in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout and a swap earlier that year of Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

President Joe Biden placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In his Oval Office address to the American people discussing his recent decision to drop his bid for a second term, the Democrat said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

Russia has long been interested in getting back Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services.

Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial and conviction for Gershkovich that Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.

Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.

Gershkovich was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S. The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.

He had more than a dozen closed hearings over the extension of his pretrial detention or appeals for his release. He was taken to the courthouse in handcuffs and appeared in the defendants’ cage, often smiling for the many cameras.

U.S. officials last year made an offer to swap Gershkovich that was rejected by Russia, and Biden’s Democratic administration had not made public any possible deals since then.

Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding. Whelan was convicted of espionage charges, which he and the U.S. have also said were false and trumped up, and he is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Whelan had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including those involving Reed and Griner.

Story by Eric Tucker, Dasha Litvinova and Matthew Lee, Associated Press. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

Detroit City Council is going on recess from July 31 to September, but that doesn’t mean all local government meetings will stop in and around Detroit.

WDET’s newsroom partner Detroit Documenters report on many public government meetings in southeast Michigan. And now, we’re starting a new project with the Documenters.

Each Friday, we’ll be joined by members of the team to discuss not only what’s happening at government meetings, but also how you can be civically engaged with Detroit and its suburbs.

Detroit Documenter coordinators Lynelle Herndon and Noah Kincade joined The Metro this week to discuss their work and a recent SMART transit meeting they covered.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Detroit Documenters are a collective of more than 500 southeast Michigan residents who are trained and paid to take notes on local government meetings. These notes are shared with the public to keep an open record of what happens at these meetings. 

“So anyone in Detroit or the surrounding area can be a Detroit Documenter. Documenters come from maybe up to 45 minutes to an hour outside of the city,” Herndon said. “Just live, love, work in the city of Detroit. You need to be 16 years or older and know how to read, write and navigate the internet and then we’ll train you to do the rest.”

Documenters covered the SMART Board of Directors meeting on Thursday. SMART bus operators have been working without a contract since January 2023. 

At the meeting, Kincade spoke with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1564 President Kevin Colon, the union representing SMART operators. He told Kincade that contract negotiations are in a fact finding stage.    

“To come to an agreement, both sides kind of make their best offers and then a mediator tries to figure out what the best deal is for both sides,” Kincade said.  

It’s unclear when a contract will be reached, and Kincade says SMART operators have little leverage in negotiations as they can’t go on strike as government workers.

“It sounds like they may have come to kind of agreeable terms on their pay, but it’s really, the operators have been stripped from a retirement plan. So if you came in right now as a new driver, you’re not going to have any kind of retirement plan,” Kincade said.

A driver shortage is also having an impact on riders. Kincade spoke with Transit Riders United Engagement Specialist Lukas Lasecki. TRU is an organization working to improve transit in the region. Lasecki was in attendance to represent people who use the transit system. 

“The drivers, they’re working without a contract. And between that and the low pay that they’ve been given, it makes it difficult to attract new drivers. And SMART is short close to 100 drivers which is having major impacts on service reliability,” Lasecki said. “If two drivers call off sick, they start canceling buses. And that’s a daily occurrence in Oakland County. It’s not, it’s not sustainable and it’s leaving us bus riders stranded all the time.”

Want to become a Detroit Documenter? The next training session is on Aug. 1. You can find information on many public meetings at detroit.documenters.org.  

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Herndon and Kincade.

More headlines from The Metro on July 26, 2024: 

• Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which aims to end discrimination against people with disabilities. CurbCutOS CEO Mark Pound and Accessibility Support Engineer Al Puzzuoli joined the show to talk about technology’s slow adoption of ADA requirements. 
• Some of Detroit’s neighborhood names have a long history, like Corktown — Detroit’s oldest neighborhood. Others come from nearby landmarks, but changes in the city sometimes cause the original context to no longer make sense. Alex Hill, a local researcher, cartographer and founder of Detroitography.com, joined The Metro to discuss the many neighborhood names of Detroit.
• The Detroit Film Theatre inside of the Detroit Institute of Arts is celebrating its 50th year at the museum. WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper caught up with longtime director Eliott Wilhelm to find out what’s screening.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.