DETROIT — Paul Whelan, a Marine veteran, is marking 2,000 days in custody of Russia on Wednesday, a grim milestone that comes as his family criticizes the Biden administration for “false promises” and “false hopes” that they would soon secure his release.

“The reality is that the U.S. does not appear to have made more than one offer to secure Paul’s release since ... late 2023,” David Whelan, twin brother to Paul, said in a Wednesday statement.

“It’s become harder to know, though, as the White House has reduced the information they make available to our family. .... Information sharing that used to happen has stopped. Doors that used to be open are shut.”

Representatives for the White House and State Department did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment. “Timely” information about significant events in a hostage’s case is supposed to be provided to families under a presidential directive dating to 2015 and under the 2020 Robert Levinson Act.

Paul Whelan, 54, was arrested in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28, 2018, on what he and U.S. officials have long decried as bogus espionage charges. Convicted in 2020, he was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor that he’s serving at a labor camp in remote Mordovia.

He’s now served a third of that sentence, David Whelan noted Wednesday.

Paul was left behind in two previous U.S.-Russian exchanges ― prisoner swaps for basketball star Brittney Griner and another American, Trevor Reed, in 2022. He has expressed concern that Biden’s administration will work out a deal for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who’s been held just over a year “and will leave me here a third time,” Whelan told The Detroit News in December.

David said the U.S. government does not seem “any further ahead” on negotiating his brother’s release than in December 2022 after Griner’s release, when officials claimed they would immediately “redouble” their efforts. David highlighted a quote from Roger Carstens, the president’s special envoy for hostage affairs, from that month:

“The president’s focused. The secretary’s focused. We’re meeting today, Monday morning, to go through the next steps of the strategy, but Paul, we haven’t forgotten you, we’re coming to get you,” Carstens said.

President Joe Biden in January met with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, at the White House. She called it a “very constructive meeting” at the time and expressed confidence that the Biden administration was committed to bringing her brother home. She is returning to Washington next month hoping to meet with officials again.

The Whelan family recently had a recent phone call with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy, according to David, saying they’re grateful for her support and that of her consular staff.

“But we also made it clear that calling Paul’s case a ‘priority’ of the White House had caused the word to lose all meaning. Paul’s case does not appear to be a priority,” David said.

“Or the people who say it is use that word in a very different way from how it’s defined. This strong consular support, weak White House support hearkens back to Paul’s first 1,000 days.”

The espionage trial of Gershkovich is scheduled to begin June 26 and will be held behind closed doors, the Associated Press reported this week.

Gershkovich, his newspaper and U.S. officials have denied allegations by Russia’s Federal Security Service that he was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets. Like Whelan, U.S. officials have designated him wrongly detained. He faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

“Ultimately, we’re going to try to bring him home and we’re going to try to bring Paul Whelan home, and that continues to be our overriding goal,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.

“Charges against him are completely bogus, as we have made clear, and we believe the Russian Government knows that they are completely bogus. ... There was a significant offer that we put on the table for the return of both Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan several months ago, and we will continue to try ― to pursue their release.”

Elizabeth Whelan told The Detroit News on Wednesday that she has no idea why she’s not getting as substantive information or details as she was leading up to January of this year. Last year, both the White House and the National Security Council were reaching out to give her updates, she said.

“That is no longer happening, and the fact that it isn’t makes me wonder, has something changed in their efforts to bring Paul home?” said Elizabeth, adding that the NSC staff have still interacted with her but providing “very limited” information.

“It’s frustrating, as now we are seven months from my meeting with the president, so vague reassurances of ongoing efforts are not at all satisfactory.”

Paul Whelan’s sister hopes to “shake some information loose” during her upcoming trip, and also to reinforce that families “should not be kept in the dark,” she said.

“These prisoners wrongfully detained are our family members, our flesh and blood. To put a fine point on it, I want to know when and how they plan to bring Paul home,” Elizabeth Whelan told The News. “If that takes me going in person to D.C. for the 26th time, then that’s what I shall do.”

David Whelan said in an interview that neither he nor his parents, who live in Manchester, expect Paul to come home to Michigan any time soon, saying there’s no “good reason” to believe U.S. officials have the ability to secure his release.

“I don’t think any of us have any expectation that the U.S. government is going to be able to find a resolution. They may be able to, but all of us are focusing on making sure we get to the end of the road,” David said, referring to the end of Paul’s 16-year sentence.

“We don’t even know what that is. We asked the U.S. embassy to try to help us get a firm calculation on what that date would be, if only so we could then broadcast it in hopes of getting the Russians to confirm it,” he added.

“We’ve seen other cases where someone will get dinged for some infraction, and they’ll get an additional two years, four years. Or they just don’t ever release the person.”

David said his brother “seems to be keeping his wits about him” in prison. He said a consular visit by the United Kingdom in May dislodged a box of books that were sent to him in December and had arrived at the prison in January but had been withheld. Paul finally received the books in late May from the prison staff.

“Reading continues to be a welcome distraction from the injustice he suffers every day,” David Whelan said.

©2024 www.detroitnews.com.

Visit at detroitnews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.