The Russia connectionFor your spies only: Cold War prisoner swaps

While Russia has detained and officially charged Paul Whelan — a dual U.S.-British citizen — with espionage, questions have arisen over whether this is a real spy case or just another move in a decades-old Cold War game.

Whelan, a former Marine who his family says was in Moscow for a friend’s wedding, has been held since December 28 and was charged with spying on 3 January.

But is the 48-year-old private-sector corporate security executive guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Some think so.

Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, says his client may just be a pawn in a plan by Moscow to force a classic spy swap given that his arrest came weeks after Russian Maria Butina pleaded guilty in the United States to acting as an agent for the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has denied that Butina is a Russian agent and has organized a social-media campaign to secure her release.

In the past, Russia has sometimes arrested foreigners with the aim of trading prisoners with other countries.

“The thing is that in this category of cases, exchanges often happen,” Zherebenkov told ABC News in a phone interview when asked about the next stages in the case.

“For an exchange to happen, there has to be a court. The court has to examine the case, to prove his guilt. The sentence must come into legal force. After that, the president can pardon him and an exchange can happen — for Russians citizens that are in detention in America,” he added, noting that Whelan intends to fight the charges and plead not guilty.

Either way, the case conjures up images of the two superpowers sending delegations to Berlin’s infamous Glienicke Bridge — often called “The Bridge of Spies” — to exchange people under the cloak of fog and nightfall.

Here are some of the notable spy and prisoner swaps between Moscow and the West over the past decades: