Join us for an in-person Spy Chat. This will be a timely discussion with a focus on Russia from the inside with a very special guest. Spy Museum Executive Director Chris Costa will lead the conversation. Costa, a former intelligence officer of 34 years with 25 of those in active duty in hot spots such as Panama, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, is also a past Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council. He will be joined by Paul Whelan, who returned to the United States in August 2024 as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.
Whelan was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 for espionage. He was imprisoned on sham spy charges in order to be later traded in a Cold War-like prisoner exchange. The case quickly became high profile with Russia falsely insisting Whelan was a spy and Whelan contending that he was set up by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). The FSB is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the former Soviet Union’s KGB. He and Costa will discuss Whelan’s reasons for being in Russia, his arrest and how the case against him was falsely created. Whelan will give an insider perspective of what it felt like to go through trial and imprisonment in the Russian system as an American. They’ll examine how much Whelan was aware of US efforts to free him and how it felt to be part of the historic prisoner swap—he was among 16 journalists, Russian opposition figures, and others exchanged for eight Russians, including a convicted assassin. Now with this ordeal behind him, Whelan will share what he believes his experience reveals about Putin’s security services and Russia.
Following the speakers’ discussion of Whelan’s experience, you’ll be able to ask questions whether you are attending online or in-person.
The in-person event will have open seating available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
