WASHINGTON – United States citizen Paul Whelan, a former marine jail in Russia on espionage charges, is seen in a rare video broadcast by a Kremlin-fund news channel.
In footage broadcast by Russia’s state-controlled network Russia Today (RT) on Monday, August 28, 2023, Whelan appears to be wearing a black prison uniform and a matching hat. He appears in various parts of the prison with other inmates. He sewed using a machine and while in the cafeteria.
“Today is the first time I’ve seen what he’s really like since June 2020,” his brother David Whelan said by email.
Paul Whelan, 52 years old, was born in Canada, where both parents are British citizens. As a child, Paul Whelan was brought by his parents to move to the United States. Not surprise, he is known to have four nationalities, namely the United States, Britain, Canada and the Republic of Ireland.
Paul Whelan joined the United States Marines in 1994 or exactly six years after he reportedly worked as a police officer in Michigan. In the early 2000s, Paul Whelan was said to have tried joining a private company called Kelly Services and serving as an IT project manager, but he was soon assigned to Iraq, namely in 2004 and 2006.

While still serving as a member of the United States Marines, Paul Whelan traveled to Russia.

He details the visit on his website, including sharing photos of himself enjoying Moscow City and St Persburg. But the site has been close. In 2008, Paul Whelan, was discharge from the United States Marines for bad behavior.
Paul Whelan was arrest in 2018 in Russia. He was convicte of espionage in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony in Mordovia. Russian region infamous since Soviet times for its penal colony. He denied the accusations.
President Joe Biden’s administration has ruled Whelan’s detention wrong. A legal term meaning that the allegations are baseless and that he was target primarily. Because he is an American citizen.
Biden has conducted two prisoner exchanges with Russia amid bilateral relations frozen by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Whelan was neither part of either.
In April 2022, Russia release former US marine Trevor Red. Who was convicte there in 2019 in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko. In a December 2022 prisoner exchange with Russia, Washington guaranteed US basketball. Star Brittney Griner’s release in exchange for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Russia is also detaining American citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. On espionage charges that can carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He was arrest in late March in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich, who denies the charges, on Saturday appealed against an extension of his pre-trial detention in Moscow.

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