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Paul Whelan, the American whose vacation plans went horribly wrong after wandering into a Russian jail for five and a half years, revealed with the casualness of someone discussing last night’s dinner that he had been playing diplomatic telephone with a group of fellow inmates turned unwilling soldiers. It’s like the world’s worst version of a spy thriller where everyone forgot the thriller part and just exchanged grim tales from the gulag instead.
On CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’—not exactly the “Face-Off” you’d think of for swapping prisoners—Whelan explained that inmates had been chatting up a storm with their comrades who were drafted straight from jail to the Ukrainian front lines. Apparently, instead of getting a degree, you just got served a rifle and a letter of resignation.
How did he stay in touch with these front-line fighters, you ask? With “burner” phones that somehow managed to make it past the layers of Russian bureaucracy—where judging by current events, you’d think they only allow flip phones and outdated VHS players (and cigarettes, lots of cigarettes). Whelan cheerfully noted, “Yeah, we had burner phones,” as if this was the latest trend in cell service plans, rather than a means of conducting a personal information network from inside a prison.
And what did the guards think of this little operation? They “looked the other way” when a pack of smokes was involved—who knew that in Russia, a carton was worth more than a month’s salary? This is akin to getting a pizza delivery right in front of a cop and asking him to hold the door.
Meanwhile, as Whelan played the role of unwitting intelligence officer, the Wagner Group was out here enrolling prisoners like they were giving away free samples in a mall. According to Whelan, 450 of his fellow inmates decided to trade their Orange jumpsuits for military fatigues—only to find themselves being used in combat like live-action video game characters. It’s like a really dark version of “Hunger Games,” where you volunteer as tribute because there’s a cigarette involved.
“Some of them are dead. Some have arms and legs missing,” Whelan lamented. It turns out the Russians were using these young men as maneuvering meat shields, sending them first through minefields. Why send out your elite troops when you can just sacrifice the unfortunate souls from your local penitentiary? There’s eco-friendly inhumane warfare for you.
Whelan, a former US Marine, finally got his own ticket out of the godforsaken Russian reality show through a prisoner swap that was less “The Great Escape” and more “Bargain Bin at the Dollar Store.” With 16 captives released in exchange for eight – it’s like some twisted political game of musical chairs, where the music stopped and no one actually won.
So, there you have it—while Whelan was busy turning Russian jail into a communication hub worthy of a spy flick, world leaders were tangled in the funhouse that is global politics, where the absurd is the norm, and tragedy is just another day at the office.
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