Little is known about the arrest in Moscow of US citizen Paul Whelan. Enough, however, to see disturbing similarities with Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko in 2016. Russia accused both men of espionage, with the charges in each case apparently linked to a memory stick or disk the men were ‘found’ with. If initial reports are correct, then both men may have been set up by people whom they had known for a long time. Both American and Ukrainian had been held for three days before the FSB reported their arrest. Although this may well have been to put pressure on the men to ‘confess’, in contrast to the fate of very many Ukrainians taken prisoner since 2014, physical torture was probably not used.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Halya Coynash: Russia has been taking Ukrainians hostage since 2014. Now they’ve seized an American
This undated family handout picture obtained on Jan. 3, 2019, shows Paul Whelan posing for a picture, an American ex-Marine who Russian prosecutors have charged in Moscow with espionage.
