WASHINGTON (Michigan News Source) – It’s been 1574 days since 53-year-old Paul Whelan, an American veteran, was arrested in Russia. He was arrested on December 28, 2018 after being accused of spying while he was working as director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner, an automotive parts manufacturer based in Michigan. Whelan is a former United States Marine and had been a police officer in Chelsea, Michigan and a Sheriff’s Deputy in Washtenaw County before working for BorgWarner. He was given a sentence of 16 years at a labor camp in Mordovia and is currently serving his fifth year.

Whelan and his family have had to watch as other wrongfully detained Americans have been able to come home including WNBA Black basketball star, Brittney Griner, who had been arrested in Russia in February of 2022 on smuggling charges when Russian customs officials found cartridges with less than one gram of medically prescribed hash oil in her luggage. She was released on December 8, 2022 after spending 295 days in Russia. The Biden administration negotiated a prisoner exchange to bring her home, and in exchange turned over Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. A huge disappointment to everyone, Whelan wasn’t included in that negotiated prisoner exchange.

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With the State Department and the White House currently under pressure to get wrongfully detained American citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released from Russia, many wonder, including the Whelan family, if Paul will be left out in the cold again during negotiations while another high-profile American gets the attention and resources of the U.S. government and the media.

Gershkovich, who was charged with espionage, has been held in Russia since March of 2023. While he’s been in the news often and getting a considerable amount of attention from the Biden Administration, Whelan’s family said in a statement that Paul spoke to his parents recently and told them that he feels “abandoned” by the U.S. government.

Paul’s brother David doesn’t believe that the United States should be negotiating the release of Americans based on the notoriety of the detainees. He said, “It is the U.S. government’s duty to bring Paul home. If the U.S. government is pulling its punches at the expense of some of its citizens, it should stop doing so.”

David, spoke to ABC News’ Linsey Davis recently about his brother and said, “I think from the very start of his detention back in 2018, he’s tried to maintain hope and he has certain things that he does everyday to create a routine and to keep a mental positivity. And I think the latest detention of an American by the Kremlin has shaken that so that he’s not only less hopeful but I think really concerned that he may be going back through a process that has happened a number of times now where an American is brought home because of concessions the U.S. government makes but Paul doesn’t come home.”

One of the things that Paul does every day is sing the National Anthem from his prison cell.

Paul’s sister Elizabeth has made 23 trips to Washington D.C. to work on getting her brother back home. She lives in Massachusetts and goes to the nation’s Capitol to meet with congressional and administration officials and has done so during both the Biden and Trump administrations – at her own expense. In a Facebook video posted on Friday, Elizabeth said, “We need The White House to take charge and get the upper hand with the likes of the Kremlin. We need some street smarts applied here…And perhaps The White House does know what it might take to get the job done, but they are reluctant to cross what they see as some red line. This reluctance means my brother Paul continues to sit in a prison camp in Russia, waiting for help that does not arrive.”

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When asked in the interview if his family would be interacting differently with the State Department, David said, “I think we are. Elizabeth is going to take a bit of a pause on her meetings with them. I think that she’s finding that there aren’t fruitful outcomes to the discussions that they’ve been having. We don’t get the sense that there are creative strategies being brought to bear on Paul’s case and frankly the family of a wrongfully detainee has limited resources. We take days off from work, we pay to travel to Washington DC to do advocacy…There’s a cost and I think that we’ve decided that for now that we need to hold off until we can see better progress.”

Some of that cost could be eliminated if a bipartisan bill in the Senate passes called “Supporting Americans Wrongfully or Unlawfully Detained Abroad Act of 2023.” Michigan News Source reported on this bill back in early March. It provides funding, although minimal, for families of those wrongfully detained in foreign countries to travel to Washington D.C. to lobby to get their family member back and also includes a few other resources. The bill, Senate Bill 509, was introduced in the Senate on February 16th and was sent to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

With all the attention focused on Gershkovich, Paul’s case seems to have faded into the background. When asked why Paul isn’t able to get the same amount of attention as the Wall Street Journal reporter and basketball star Brittney Griner, David said, “It’s hard to know. The special presidential envoy for hostage affairs last week said that he didn’t know why Paul’s case was harder, why the Russian government wasn’t letting him go and I think that even if the people in the state department know, it’s hard for us to understand either. It’s really too bad. I think there was an opportunity to bring him home in 2020 and the U.S. government decided not to do that. And then since then it’s just become very difficult and I think it’s not going to get easier with a second American charged with espionage by the Kremlin.”

For their part, the Biden Administration claims that they’re working diligently to secure Paul’s release and Ambassador Roger Carstens, the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs, told CNN that his office doesn’t prioritize certain cases and that his office has about 40 cases that they’re working on. He said, “What I can tell you is this. In 26 months, this administration has brought back 26 Americans. So, working closely with the National Security Council and The White House, we’re going to find a way to bring Evan (Gershkovich) and Paul Whelan home.” He went on to say that the President and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are also committed to bringing the men home and do whatever it takes to get the job accomplished.

When asked what the Whelan family’s next steps would be and if they had another strategy, David said, “There isn’t for our family. A lot of it’s hope and waiting and trying to keep Paul’s spirits up so that he can survive as long as he can. Unfortunately, he may have to survive for 16 years, the entirety of the sentence and we hope that’s not the case. And we want to keep our parents’ spirits up as well because of course they get disappointed when they hear Paul becoming despondent on the phone. I think we will just continue to try focus on what we have to do which is to support Paul and support our parents but it would be ideal if the State Department would also engage and put the pressure on that they said that they would do and try and bring Paul home.”

ABC’s Davis asked David if the family has given up hope. He said, “No, I think you always have to keep some hope. It would be impossible to continue either as a family member or as Paul if you gave up hope. I think that’s why we see some wrongfully detainees attempt suicide when they are in detention or being held hostage and fortunately Paul hasn’t gotten to that point so we’ll try to keep him as mentally healthy and physically healthy as we can until he’s able to come back.”