Paul Whelan marked five years in Russian detention on Thursday – a grim milestone that the ex-US Marine hoped he would never see.
In a call with CNN on Thursday, Whelan called on President Joe Biden to “please use every resource available to secure my release as you would do if your own son had been taken hostage.”
“I’m more than past ready to return home and I’m counting on the US government to come for me and soon. The time is now to take decisive action and bring this debacle to a close,” Whelan told CNN from his prison camp in Mordovia.
In the more than half a dozen phone conversations Whelan has had with CNN, he has expressed both confidence that the US government is working to secure his release and immense frustration that those efforts have not yielded success.
Whelan told CNN last week that it was “surreal” that he was marking five years in Russian detention.
“I would ask President Biden to pull out the stops, cross the red lines, and do whatever needs to be done to get this case resolved and to get me home. If my life is not worth that effort, then I don’t know what is,” Whelan told CNN last week.
In recent phone calls, Whelan has voiced exasperation that the US claims his case is “a priority” but has not found a way to bring him home. He has on multiple occasions conveyed a sense of abandonment and concern he will be left behind again, citing the release of two other Americans from Russia in a prisoner swap last year.
“I am wondering what they’re going to do next. If there’s no diplomatic solution, what comes next? What are they prepared to do to honor that promise to get me home? If they’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping that something sticks and they can come up with a quick agreement, that’s not a very good policy,” Whelan told CNN in late November.
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