US Marine Paul Whelan, who was part of a high-profile prisoner exchange with Russia recently, has shared details of his arrest and incarceration.
Mr Whelan, 54, was in Moscow attending a fellow Marine's wedding in December 2018 when he was handed a thumb drive by a longtime Russian friend and a junior officer. The drive was said to contain souvenir photos from a previous trip. Shortly after, Mr Whelan was arrested by men identifying themselves as members of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who accused him of espionage.
“I thought it was a prank,” Mr Whelan told the NY Times about the moment leading to his arrest.
He was taken and locked inside a cramped, nine-foot-square cell in Moscow's Lefortovo Prison, known for holding political prisoners. He remained there for over five years. During this time, he underwent emergency hernia surgery under dire conditions and was forced to work long hours in a labour camp sewing uniforms.
Mr Whelan described the inhumane living conditions he faced where his daily existence consisted of monotonous labour and inadequate nutrition. “It was tedious, monotonous, and filthy,” he recalled, explaining that his diet primarily consisted of bread, tea and a watery fish soup, which he called “cat food.”
The monotonous prison diet left him feeling constantly malnourished. “I lost a lot of weight. It was hard to stay healthy,” he said.
Mr Whelan's description of life in the labour camp IK-17 in Mordovia, an isolated region southeast of Moscow, was equally bleak. He compared the camp's layout to that of a World War II concentration camp, surrounded by barbed wire and low brick buildings. “It still resembles Auschwitz,” he said. Access to better food was available, but only through bribery, he revealed.
He spent more than five years imprisoned following allegations of espionage, which he always denied. He was frustrated by the lack of transparency in his trial and the secretive nature of the evidence against him. “They don't want it to look like they're just grabbing tourists out of hotels,” he said.
His release came on August 1, as part of the biggest prisoner exchange between the US and Russia since the Cold War. After enduring years of psychological and physical hardships, Mr Whelan returned to a life significantly altered – he lost his job, his car and his apartment and is now living with his ageing parents in Michigan. He has now set up a GoFundMe campaign.
He is determined to advocate for better conditions for prisoners in Russia and to help others like him.
