This seems to be the message of many Republicans after the announcement yesterday that Russia was releasing 16 prisoners, 7 of whom are Russian citizens and 3 of whom are American citizens, in return for western countries,  including the United States, releasing 8 prisoners and returning them to Moscow. The Republicans wish the deal was never done.

Of course, the overall question of whether negotiating for the return of hostages in fact simply encourages more hostage taking is a question as old as the hills. In Jewish tradition, redeeming the hostages is a necessity. In American political tradition, it seems to be the standard practice, but seems always to be questioned as a matter of principle.

The primary criticism of this week’s release goes to the release from German prison, where he was serving a life sentence, of Vadim Krasikov. Krasikov was convicted of murder in Germany following the killing in 2019 of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in cold blood (shots to the head) in a German park in broad daylight. Let’s assume that Krasikov in fact committed the crime – there is no reason to doubt it. Let’s also assume that he did it upon orders from Moscow, from Moscow at the highest level. No reason to doubt that. Let’s agree that he is a Russian “hit man”. He obviously is.

Now let’s look at Krasikov’s crime. Khangoshvili, his victim, was born in the then Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (now the independent Republic of Georgian) and is fully or partly ethnically Chechen. (Under Trumpian terms, I guess he would have had to have selected one or the other, because you can only be one thing at a time, but……that’s under Trumpian terms.)

At some point, Khangoshvili left Georgia and went to Chechnia, not an independent country but a sub-republic constituent member of and fully a part of the Russian Federation. During the second Russia-Chechnia War, he was a Chechen platoon commander, fighting against Russia. Because Chechnia was a part of Russia, to Russians, this makes Khangoshvili a traitor. After serving as a Chechen fighter, Khangoshvili returned to his home country Georgia, no longer an SSR, but an independent republic. Georgia and Russia are far from friends, and, as you may remember, fought a war in 2008. In that war, Khangoshvili was an officer in the Georgian army. After the war, the Russians claim (no reason to doubt them) that Khangoshvili infiltrated Russian spy circles in Georgia and reported names of Russian operatives to the Georgian government. All of this made Khangoshvili an enemy of the Russian state, to be sure.

My point being that this was a political crime and, for example, from a Russian perspective, may be not that different from the three recent Israeli assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah high level operatives, or even the American killings of, say, Bin Laden or of Qasem Soleimani of Iran. If the “perpetrators” of those “crimes” had been imprisoned by Iran or Hamas, wouldn’t we want them released? The answer is “of course”, and if Iran or Hamas told us they couldn’t release them as part of a swap because they were simple “criminals”, we would be outraged. Krasikov  may be no different than the American who targeted Soleimani with a drone.

I say all of this simply because those people who say we are obtaining the release of our hostages by releasing dangerous criminals back to Russia are either not looking deeply enough at the circumstances, or being somewhat unknowingly hypocritical. None of the others released to Russia were violent criminals, either. They were either spies or perpetrators of financial crimes.

This is not to say that I believe Russia had a legitimate right to hold the three Americans as prisoners, but once they were there, it was our duty to get them out, and the price we paid was not close to being excessive.

I also have to say something about Mr. Trump. First, President Biden was correct when he said that Trump failed to get Paul Whelan out when he was president. Whelan has been imprisoned almost six years. (And, by the way, although my knowledge is very limited, the Whalen case is an odd one. He was found with a flash drive on him containing some confidential Russian military information. He says it was planted on him by a “friend” and he was the victim of a sting. I don’t think many details have been released. But Whalen, now an American hero, it appears, has a very spotty background. Yes, he was a Marine, but he was a Marine who was court martialed and reduced in rank after allegedly being involved in theft in Iraq. Maybe we need to know more about him?)

Secondly, when Trump said that, after he won the election, Putin was going to release the Americans held in prison as a gift to him and not before, he was obviously wrong, and he had no basis for his comment.

And third, when Trump said he could have had them released without giving Putin anything, as opposed to paying much too high a price, he knew this not to be true.

Finally, during his four years in office, Trump released to foreign governments many people we had imprisoned in trades to get Americans released from other countries’ jails. In 2019, he did a one-for-one swap with Iran. In the same year, three Taliban members held by the legitimate government of Afghanistan were returned to the Taliban in exchange for the release of two Americans, a swap in which Trump’s office was involved. In 2020, there was a second one-for-one trade with Iran, and there was the release of 200 Houthis held by Oman in return for two Americans, another American brokered deal.

And of course, you remember the release of 5000 Taliban members in 2020, as a quid pro quo for starting peace negotiations with the Taliban. That extraordinarily misguided deal was made by the Trump administration without even informing the American backed Afghanistan administration that it was being discussed. We know where this got us – making it clear to the people of Afghanistan that we did not acknowledge their government as a serious governing body (thus making it impossible for that government to continue to operate with any gravitas). Trump then made a promise to withdraw from Afghanistan by a date certain, setting the stage for the chaos that occurred in 2021.

Beyond Trump, there was J.D. Vance yesterday, who said that the release of prisoners by Russia shows that dictatorships all around the world want to “clean house” before Trump returns to office, because they know that – after that – they won’t get away with anything. All that comment deserves is a big “Huh?”.

The prisoner release was a discussion point on  C-Span yesterday morning. Most (not all) of the callers thought the deal was bad. I wish they could read this post.