This August, in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War, Russia released three American citizens—Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva, and Marine Corps veteran and business security consultant Paul Whelan. Gershkovich and Kurmasheva were arrested in 2023. Last month, following dubious legal proceedings, both were sentenced to long prison terms, Gershkovich for “espionage” and Kurmasheva, who also holds Russian citizenship, for “spreading false information about the Russian army,” which is a criminal offense in Russia. Whelan, who has been held since 2018, was convicted on flimsy charges of espionage in 2020 and was serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Russia also released four German citizens convicted on a variety of questionable grounds, as well as seven Russian citizens and one British-Russian dual citizen—the celebrated journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza—who were either associated with democratic opposition groups or criticized the war in Ukraine, also a criminal offense. Belarus released another German aid worker held on doubtful sabotage charges.

The release of these 16 individuals from Russian incarceration should be celebrated, especially after leading Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison in February. Conditions in Russian penal institutions are horrible. All of those held were at serious risk of mistreatment, illness, isolation, inadequate medical care, psychological harm, sanctioned or unsanctioned violence, or worse.Unfortunately, securing the swap required agreement to an asymmetrical quid pro quo heavily slanted in Russia’s favor. None of the journalists, activists, or others whom Russia  released is believed to have committed any serious crime. In their freedom, none poses any threat to Russia. Indeed, they are not criminals at all, but de facto hostages seized by a cruel regime that has nothing but contempt for the rule of law and something to gain from seizing innocent foreigners. In exchange for their freedom, the U.S. and four NATO-allied countries agreed to release eight Russians who were either convicted of serious crimes in free and fair Western court proceedings or imminently faced such prosecution on charges backed by solid evidence.

At the top of the list is FSB (former KGB) Colonel Vadim Krasikov, whom a German court sentenced to life in prison in 2021 for the execution-style murder of a Chechen resistance leader living in Berlin. The German government maintains that Krasikov was acting on official orders from Moscow, though Moscow denies it. Three other major criminals were released from U.S. custody. Roman Seleznev, the son of a Russian lawmaker who was seven years into a 27-year sentence at the time of the exchange, was convicted of stealing $169 million through credit card fraud. Vladislav Klyushin was serving nine years in U.S. federal prison for hacking unreleased corporate earnings reports. Vadim Konoshchenok faced trial for illegally smuggling military material to Russia. The four remaining individuals were convicted or accused Russian spies who had assumed identities. All  these miscreants are now free to bask in their country’s successful efforts to secure their release, without having paid their debt to society and while, potentially able to continue their criminal careers.

Despite these problems, the Biden administration is claiming major credit, citing the swap as evidence of the President’s supposed stature as a great statesman, and awareness of the importance of allies, who were in this case willing—albeit after lengthy discussions—to release Russian criminals caught on their soil to help Americans come home. No one has yet asked why it took so long, though some have speculated that Russia reasoned it would get better terms out of a lame duck Biden than it might get from a revenant Donald J. Trump, who may return to office in January 2025. When asked about Trump’s claim that he could obtain the release of U.S. citizens held by Russia without negotiation, Biden asked why Trump had not done so during his presidency. In those years, however, only Whelan was in Russian custody. All the other prisoners were taken after Biden entered office.

While we can be happy for those released, all Biden’s administration has really done is legitimize and expand a practice that allows rogue states to recover operatives captured abroad by arbitrarily seizing Westerners within their grasp. We already saw this at work in 2022, when the women’s basketball player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on a low-level drug charge, sentenced to an unwarrantedly long prison term, and then used as the excuse to bargain for the release of the arms dealer Viktor Bout, infamously known as the “Merchant of Death,” who was then serving a 25-year sentence in the United States for major financial crimes and multiple conspiracy counts. Bout was arming foreign terrorist organizations to kill Americans. Earlier that year, Marine Corps veteran Trevor Reed, who was arrested in Russia in 2019 on a flimsy and unproved charge of assaulting a police officer, was exchanged for a Russian military pilot who had been arrested while attempting to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

For as long as weak administrations govern our country, we should expect more Americans to be taken, with ever higher prices for their freedom imposed.