Fear Grows Among Families of Americans Held in Russia

WASHINGTON—Last summer, after authorities seized his wife’s U.S. and Russian passports while she was visiting her ailing mother in Russia, Pavel Butorin remained hopeful.

He booked Taylor Swift tickets, certain that Alsu Kurmasheva would be home well in time to celebrate their daughter turning 13 at the concert this August.

But nine months on, Kurmasheva, a journalist, is in a Russian jail awaiting trial, and the charges against her have escalated over a book she helped edit that criticizes the invasion of Ukraine. Where initially she faced a fine for failing to properly declare her U.S. citizenship, the 47-year-old is now charged with disseminating false information about Russia’s military, a crime that can carry a prison sentence of 15 years. She has denied the allegations against her through her husband and legal team.

Kurmasheva is one of a lengthening list of U.S. citizens who have been detained by Russia. As relations between Washington and Moscow have sunk to their lowest point since the Cold War, their families are desperate to have them included on a much shorter roll: Americans the U.S. deems wrongfully held in Russia.

That label effectively commits the U.S. to working to secure a person’s release and currently only applies to two Americans locked up in Russia: Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter detained last year, and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive serving 16 years in a Russian penal colony.

Kurmasheva’s two daughters, aged 12 and 15, measure her absence in missed birthdays and feel it most when they see other moms at the school gate or have to field awkward questions about where she is. The family also worries about why she isn’t classified as wrongfully detained, and what that means for her chances of coming home. The U.S. State Department has said that it continues to look at her case, that the Russian government has brought baseless charges against her and that it is deeply concerned about her detention.

Gershkovich, who was detained last March while on a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, was accredited as a journalist by Russian authorities at the time of his detention by Russia’s Federal Security Service. He is held on an allegation of espionage that he, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

Whelan, 54, has been held since late 2018 and was convicted in 2020 on espionage charges that he and the U.S. say are bogus.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called for both men to be freed. Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly raised the prospect of a prisoner swap for Gershkovich. Whelan has twice seen other Americans freed in prisoner exchanges that didn’t include him, and his family has said a third deal without him “would be an unconscionable betrayal.”

There are other families also seeking the might of the U.S. government to bring their loved ones home from Russia, potentially on the tailwinds of any negotiations for Gershkovich and Whelan. The detainees include a teacher, a dissident and a beautician. And as their numbers grow, their relatives become more fearful.

Kurmasheva’s family and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, her employer, say she is being targeted as a U.S. citizen and as a journalist, elements in a 2020 law used to assess when an American may have been wrongfully detained by a hostile foreign government. The law, known as the Levinson Act, includes 11 non-exhaustive criteria that the secretary of state can consider to determine whether an American is being unlawfully held.

Russia says it doesn’t single out U.S. citizens for detention, and that it takes appropriate measures against those who violate its law.

Butorin, Kurmasheva’s husband, thought they were close to an official recognition of wrongful detention after a White House holiday reception in December, when President Biden said the U.S. government was “fighting every day for the release of Evan and Alsu and Paul.” But this month, with no such designation in sight, Butorin came to Washington with his daughters, Miriam and Bibi, for a whirlwind of meetings, events and media interviews to highlight her plight.

Their schedule included a panel discussion at which the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens said that the process can be lengthy, in part because it takes time to get the information needed to make a determination, and there are instances when the government considers that applying the label could actually hinder a case’s resolution. The U.S. has previously brought home Americans who weren’t considered to be wrongfully detained, alongside those who were.

U.S. officials generally decline to discuss negotiations or the designation process for specific cases. Carstens promised that the State Department considers everyone equally and that publicity doesn’t result in one held American being given priority over another.

That doesn’t make Butorin and his daughters less anxious.

“She eats and sleeps 3 feet from a hole in the floor for a toilet, and for what? For being an American, for being an American journalist,” said Butorin, a beaded friendship bracelet made by Miriam that reads “Free Alsu” tied around his wrist. “She is held by the same penitentiary system that has tortured to death Alexei Navalny.”

The Russian opposition politician, and Putin’s fiercest critic, died in an Arctic prison camp in February. Russian authorities said he died of natural causes and have dismissed allegations of foul play.

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation hostage advocacy group says that Kurmasheva meets the bar for wrongful detention. It independently assesses cases based on the legal criteria and also considers Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, a U.K. citizen and U.S. lawful permanent resident, to be wrongfully detained. Kara-Murza was convicted of treason in Russia last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison after he criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Supporters of the 42-year-old, who was recently transferred between Siberian penal colonies, say he has less than two years to live if he doesn’t get treatment for a condition affecting his nervous system caused by two life-threatening poisonings, in 2015 and 2017, that he blames on the Russian state. Russia denies involvement.

A cross-party group of U.S. lawmakers had pushed for Kara-Murza’s inclusion in the 2022 U.S.-Russia prisoner swap deal that ultimately only brought home the women’s basketball star Brittney Griner. The State Department says Kara-Murza is a “political prisoner” who should be freed.

In February, news broke of another dual U.S.-Russian citizen’s detention: Ksenia Karelina, a 32-year-old aesthetician at a Beverly Hills spa who had traveled to Yekaterinburg to see her family.

Russia’s FSB alleged that she had collected funds for a Ukrainian organization that were used to buy military supplies. The FSB said it had opened a criminal case but didn’t provide more details.

Karelina’s supporters in the U.S. say they have secured her a Russian lawyer, sought U.S. legal advice and the help of American political officials. Karelina, they said, is only guilty of answering a charity appeal for medical and educational needs.

“American people should know about her, she is an American citizen,” said Eleonora Srebroski, Karelina’s former mother-in-law, a dual Russian-U.S. citizen who lives in Baltimore.

U.S. Embassy officials have so far been unable to see or contact Karelina, said Chris Van Heerden, her boyfriend. The State Department says that it is often particularly difficult to secure consular access to dual citizens.

“Ksenia is trying her best to not think further than the day she is in, but this is difficult, she has waves of feeling really depressed and beat and this breaks my heart,” Van Heerden said.

The latest detentions also hit hard for the families of Americans who are already serving sentences in Russian penal colonies.

Marc Fogel, a 62-year-old teacher, has been held since August 2021 for carrying medical marijuana and is now serving a 14-year prison sentence. The U.S. has sought to free him on “humanitarian grounds,” including in 2022 alongside Griner until the more ambitious attempts at dealmaking collapsed.

Fogel’s sisters say their 95-year-old mother fears she will die before seeing her son again, and wants to travel to Russia if necessary to stop that from happening.

“It’s all horrific,” said Fogel’s sister Lisa Hyland. “And they keep taking people.”

Alicia A. Caldwell and Matthew Luxmoore contributed to this article.

Write to Louise Radnofsky at [email protected]