Paul Whelan’s sister confronts Russia’s Lavrov at UN Security Council
Joel Gehrke
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov found himself bracketed at the United Nations by the sister of Paul Whelan, who cited his imprisonment as evidence of “Russia’s descent into lawlessness” under Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia’s less-than-sophisticated take on diplomacy is to arbitrarily detain American citizens in order to extract concessions from the United States,” Elizabeth Whelan told reporters at the United Nations. “This is not the work of a mature and responsible nation; it is the action of a terrorist state.”
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That indictment challenged the premise of the U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, which Lavrov was entitled to chair because Russia holds the council presidency for the month of April. Russia billed the meeting as a format to discuss “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” a euphemism for Moscow’s desire to constrain Western power, a year into a campaign to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and annex Ukrainian territory, but Elizabeth Whelan excoriated Moscow’s seizure of Americans such as Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“This Russian playbook is so lazy that even Evan has the same investigator, a man who harassed and interrogated my brother until Paul’s sham trial in June of 2020, when Paul was given a horrific sentence of 16 years for a crime he did not commit,” she told reporters just as the Security Council meeting began. “Now Paul is being held in labor camp IK-17 in the remote province of Mordovia, held as a pawn and victim of Russia’s descent into lawlessness.”
Russia’s FSB agency, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, seized Gershkovich on spy allegations on March 29. The same agency, which was also the professional home of Putin before his emergence as heir apparent in the Kremlin just weeks before the resignation of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, arrested Paul Whelan in December 2018.
Russian authorities also arrested WNBA star Brittney Griner as she sought to leave the country at the outset of the full-scale Russian invasion last year, only to release her in exchange for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the lead U.S. envoy at the United Nations, took Elizabeth Whelan and her denunciation of the “wrongful detention” of her brother into the Security Council meeting.
“I want Minister Lavrov to look into her eyes and see her suffering. I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years, to know he is locked up in a Russian penal colony simply because you want to use him for your own means,” the ambassador said. “I am calling on you, right now, to release Paul Whelan [and] Evan Gershkovich immediately, to let Paul and Evan come home, and to cease this barbaric practice once and for all.”
It was an unusual moment in the diplomatic spotlight for a family that has grown frustrated with the U.S. government’s performance on Paul Whelan’s behalf. The detention of Gershkowicz, so soon after the deal that secured Griner’s release, has left the Michigan native “understandably apprehensive that the U.S. government will choose not to bring him home again,” as his twin brother, David, put it last week.
“His resilience is shaken,” David Whelan wrote in an April 17 email to journalists and activists following a phone call between Paul Whelan and their parents. “On Friday, Paul told our parents he feels as though the U.S. government has abandoned him.”
Paul Whelan made that point to U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy in a Thursday phone call, his brother added Monday.
“Paul also communicated very clearly his concern lest the U.S. government bring home other American citizens from Russia and leave him behind again,” David Whelan wrote, adding that their sister received “a briefing by White House officials” that day. “While it was inconclusive, we appreciate that they have heard our concerns. It is not at all clear that they [have] taken the steps to create opportunities to bring Paul home but we will continue to watch and hope for that activity.”
U.S. officials “put forward a serious proposal” to broker Paul Whelan’s release, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in March, but the negotiations have not made any apparent progress.
“Elizabeth has not seen any creative strategies,” David Whelan wrote on April 17. “Instead, she has seen the U.S. government create arbitrary red lines it won’t cross in Paul’s case. Then it crosses those lines, but brings home other wrongful detainees from Russia and leaves Paul behind.”
David Whelan announced in that complaint that his sister had decided “to pause her interactions with the State and National Security staff until they stop wasting her time and come up with something more than thoughts and prayers” — in part due to the “literal cost to families” caused by the often fruitless encounters.
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But the opportunity to confront Lavrov for the theft of her brother’s “life of hope and opportunity” drew her out again.
“All that has been taken away from him by Russia, a country that revels in its culture of lies, its tradition of hostage diplomacy,” she told reporters. “And who will be their next victim? It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see that Russia will continue to push the boundaries. I am here today to tell the global community that one way to engage in effective multilateralism is to confront those countries that resort to hostage diplomacy. And I am here to tell Russia: Free Paul Whelan.”