Countries have been engaged in warfare since ancient times, which has often led to prisoners being held on both sides of the fight. But it isn’t always those involved in wars who are taken prisoner. Often, nations that disagree, or have different policies, hold citizens from different nations in custody, usually as a political ploy to be used as pawns.
Several nations have employed this method. From Russia, which although a democracy is run more like a dictatorship ruled by Vladimir Putin, and is not considered a free nation according to Freedomhouse.org, to Iran, run by Ali Khamenei, non-citizens have found themselves in troubling situations whether they have done nothing wrong or something minor, as was the case with American WNBA star Brittney Griner, among others. (Things seem all the more worrisome when two dangerous world leaders, like Putin and North Korea’s King Jong Un, become allies, as they recently did when they signed a new partnership.)
Griner entered Russia in February 2022, where she was arrested for smuggling drugs with illegal intent and was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. On Dec. 8, 2022, after months of negotiations over her wrongful imprisonment, Griner was exchanged on a tarmac in Abu Dhabi for Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, who had been a prisoner in the U.S. This trade was the latest high-profile event in a long history of prisoner swaps between the United States and hostile foreign nations.
As the number of wrongfully detained Americans abroad increases – one researcher estimates their number has risen 175% over the last decade – prisoner swaps may become more common. The U.S. and Iran recently worked out a deal that led to the release of five American citizens who were held on baseless charges for political leverage. It was a controversial swap. In exchange for their freedom, the U.S. released six billion of frozen Iranian funds held in South Korea.
Using various news and historical sources, 24/7 Tempo compiled a list of the most notable prisoner swaps in modern history. Prisoner exchanges are ordered chronologically, and the list is far from complete. Some of the most notable swaps were conducted during the Cold War, when two spies, each caught by their enemy, were exchanged and released to their respective countries of allegiance.
The iconographic blueprint for prisoner swaps is likely the 1962 exchange of American pilot Francis Gary Powers for Soviet KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel, conducted on the Glienicke Bridge spanning the border of East and West Germany – an event dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 film “Bridge of Spies.” (Check out prisoners of war who became celebrities.) Glienicke Bridge would serve as host to several other notable spy exchanges during the Cold War, including the largest of the era, when, in June 1985, the U.S. swapped four accused Eastern European spies for 25 individuals of various nationalities imprisoned in East Germany and Poland who were “of interest” to the U.S.
While during the Cold War prisoner swaps tended to involve rank-for-rank trades of spies or combatants, in recent years civil prisoners have been the subject of high-profile exchanges. Princeton University graduate student Xiyue Yang, for example, was arrested for espionage while conducting research in Iran. While the United States denied the charges, they ultimately secured Yang’s release in exchange for Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani. (These are the most famous spies in American history.)
Many civilian prisoner swap cases have also been lopsided, as in the Griner-Bout trade, with the United States releasing serious criminals in exchange for Americans arrested abroad for bogus or trumped-up charges. Trevor Reed, for example – arrested while drunk in Moscow and sentenced to nine years in prison – was exchanged in April 2022 for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of cocaine trafficking charges who had been serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut.
Here are the most notable prisoner swaps in modern history.
10. Francis Gary Powers (U.S.) for Rudolf Abel (Soviet Union)
- Date: February 10, 1962
American pilot Powers, whose U-2 spy plane had been shot down over the Soviet Union two years earlier, was exchanged for Abel – real name William August Fisher – a spy for the Soviets who had been convicted of espionage in the United States in 1957 and sentenced to thirty years in prison. These two spies walked in opposite directions – Powers toward the West, Abel toward the East – across Berlin’s Glienicker Brücke, a bridge spanning the Havel River, which separated East and West Germany during the Cold War.
9. 25 people imprisoned in East Germany and Poland (U.S.) for four Eastern Europeans (Eastern Bloc)
- Date: June 1985
In what became the largest prisoner swap of the Cold War, the U.S. swapped four Eastern Europeans (Marian W. Zacharski, Poland; Alfred Zehe and Alice Michelson, East Germany; Penyu Baychev Kostadinov, Bulgaria) held for espionage in exchange for 25 individuals imprisoned in East Germany and Poland. While the identities of those released to the United States remain confidential, most of the 25 prisoners were of German nationality and were likely working as intelligence agents for the CIA.
8. Nicholas Daniloff (U.S.) for Gennadi Zakharov (Soviet Union)
- Date: August 31, 1986
Soviet scientist Zakharov was arrested in New York City for allegedly buying classified documents describing U.S. Air Force jet engine technology from an FBI informant. Three days later, the KGB arrested U.S. News & World Report correspondent Daniloff in Moscow for allegedly receiving a package containing classified materials. While the arrest of Daniloff was considered a retaliatory move by the Soviet Union, the two prisoners were exchanged later that year.
7. Four U.S. intelligence agents (U.S.) for 10 Russian sleeper agents (Russia)
- Date: June 2010
After more than a decade of close surveillance, the FBI arrested a group of 10 Russian sleeper agents in the United States – the largest spy roundup since the Cold War. Less than a month later, the 10 agents were flown back to Moscow in exchange for four Soviets who were U.S. intelligence assets held in Russian prisons (Alexander Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin, Sergei Skripal, and Gennady Vasilenko).
6. Bowe Bergdahl (U.S.) for five Taliban detainees (Afghanistan)
- Date: June 30, 2014
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was captured by Taliban forces after walking off his base in Afghanistan. After five years in captivity, Bergdahl was exchanged for five high-ranking Taliban members who were being held at Guantanamo Bay, including at least one with direct ties to Osama Bin Laden.
While the exchange ended the longest detention of an American soldier since the Vietnam War, Bergdahl’s return was subjected to intense media scrutiny as the circumstances around his desertion and capture came under investigation. In 2017, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, was demoted to private, and was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged and fined $10,000.
5. Alan Gross (U.S.) for three Cuban spies (Cuba)
- Date: December 2014
In 2009, U.S. government contractor Alan Gross was arrested by Cuban authorities for allegedly working with American intelligence services on a project to overthrow the Cuban government. While the U.S. regarded the charges as baseless and condemned the wrongful detention of an American citizen, Gross was ultimately exchanged for three members of the Cuban Five – a group of Cuban intelligence officers arrested in Miami in 1998 for conspiracy to commit espionage and murder, among other crimes.
4. Jason Rezaian and three other Americans of Iranian descent (U.S.) for seven Iranians held on sanctions violations (Iran)
- Date: January 2016
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was released by Iranian authorities after being detained in Tehran for 18 months. Three other Americans of Iranian descent were set free along with him as part of a prisoner swap negotiated between the U.S. and Iran, with the Obama administration agreeing to pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians held in the U.S. for sanctions violations.
3. Xiyue Wang (U.S.) for Masoud Soleimani (Iran)
- Date: August 2019
Princeton University graduate student Wang, a Chinese-American, was arrested while conducting research in Iran and charged with espionage. While U.S. officials denied the charges, Wang was sentenced to 10 years in an Iranian prison. In exchange for her release, the United States freed Masoud Soleimiani, an Iranian scientist who’d been arrested in Chicago in 2018 for attempting to export biological materials from the U.S. to Iran without authorization.
2. Trevor Reed (U.S.) for Konstantin Yaroshenko (Russia)
- Date: April 2022
Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed was arrested for intoxication while visiting Moscow and sentenced to nine years in prison for alleged violence against Russian police officers. After serving three years where he maintained his innocence and the bogus nature of the charges against him, Reed was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of cocaine trafficking charges who had been serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut. (Reed went on to fight for Ukraine as a volunteer not affiliated with the U.S.)
1. Brittney Griner (U.S.) for Victor Bout (Russia)
- Date: February 2022
WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested by Russian customs officials on charges of drug smuggling due to the possession of vape cartridges containing hash oil. While U.S. officials claimed Griner had been wrongfully detained and denounced the trumped-up charges, several months later Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Bumpy negotiations between the United States and Russia over Griner’s release – amidst one of the lowest points in relations between the two countries since the Cold War – went on for months until December, when Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Victor Bout, a Russian arms dealer then serving a 25-year sentence in an American prison.