BOMBSHELL: Paul Whelan’s Chilling Story from Russian Labor Camp!

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, recently shared his harrowing experience of imprisonment in Russia in a candid interview with “Face the Nation.” Whelan’s account provides a stark glimpse into life within the confines of a Russian labor camp and the complex diplomatic maneuvers that led to his eventual release.

In December 2022, as he worked in a factory within a Mordovia labor camp, Paul Whelan was called to the warden’s office. Hopeful that this summons would mean his freedom, he was instead informed that it was Brittney Griner, the American basketball star, who would be returning home. Griner’s release came as part of a high-profile prisoner exchange involving Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer.

“I asked him point blank, I said, so what else do you have to trade? And he said, ‘Nothing,'” Whelan recalled, describing his conversation with a U.S. official. The gravity of the situation dawned on him: there were no more bargaining chips left to secure his release. “You realize what you’ve done here,” he told the official. “You have no one to trade. They don’t want anyone else.”

Whelan had already spent two years serving a 16-year sentence after being detained in 2018 on charges of espionage—accusations that the U.S. has deemed baseless. His hopes had been dashed once before when another Marine veteran, Trevor Reed, was released in a previous swap, a decision Whelan learned about over the radio while working.

“All I could do is just sit back and try to process what I just heard in Russian,” he said. “All I could do was just keep on working.”

Whelan’s arrest in Moscow, where he had traveled for a wedding, came under dubious circumstances. A video of his arrest showed him being handed a flash drive by an acquaintance, moments before Russian FSB agents took him into custody. Though he didn’t elaborate on the identity of the acquaintance, Whelan believes he was set up.

“I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t committed espionage,” Whelan insisted. At the time, he was the global security head for BorgWarner, an auto parts supplier. His arrest was compounded by the fact that the company laid him off during his imprisonment and continued its operations in Russia.

“If you can call an act by an employer un-American, that was un-American,” Whelan remarked. “They haven’t done anything to support me or my family.”

Inside the labor camp, Whelan faced grueling conditions. He was kept awake every two hours by guards for four years, disrupting his sleep in a way that still affects him. “Getting off that sleep pattern has been very, very difficult,” he shared.

Despite the hardships, Whelan found solidarity among fellow prisoners, mostly young men from Central Asian countries. They formed a tight-knit group that helped Whelan communicate with Trevor Reed and others through a covert network facilitated by contraband cellphones. These illicit devices also enabled them to maintain contact with prisoners who had been sent to fight in Ukraine.

“A Russian prison guard gets $300, $400 a month. You give them a carton of cigarettes, and you can do just about anything you want,” Whelan explained.

As Whelan languished, his family tirelessly advocated for his release, pressing the U.S. government to act. His plight became even more pressing when Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained under similar charges. The pressure mounted on the Biden administration to negotiate their freedom.

The negotiations were protracted and delicate, culminating in a large-scale prisoner swap. On August 1, Whelan and 15 others, including Gershkovich and political prisoners associated with Alexei Navalny, were released in exchange for eight Russians, including a convicted assassin.

Whelan’s journey back to the U.S. was surreal. As the plane carrying him and the other freed individuals approached the English Channel, the sight of the White Cliffs of Dover moved him deeply. “I wasn’t expecting to see the White Cliffs of Dover, but I did,” he said, fighting back tears.

Upon landing at Joint Base Andrews, Whelan was greeted by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The president honored him by pinning an American flag on his shirt. Amid the emotional reunion, Whelan caught a glimpse of the Paris Olympics on TV, where Brittney Griner, who had advocated for his release, was competing.

“It was one of those incredible moments,” Whelan said, reflecting on the unexpected intersection of their fates.