The interesting thing about this article about the negotiations that led up to the Griner-Bout swap is it is another example of Putin's ongoing misunderstanding about the U.S.
Putin does not seem to believe that the people he views as "minor players" have agency. The leaders of Russia, the U.S., China, those type of people, can make decisions. But when anyone else does something, they are inevitably perceived as a pawn for the real decision-makers. So when Ukrainians protested their corrupt government in 2014, Putin viewed that as a U.S.-led plot to overthrow his pawn in Kyiv. Putin similarly sees the war in Ukraine, more as a war against NATO than against the people who live in Ukraine. Moreover, Putin does not think of NATO as a mutual defense alliance between sovereign nations, but rather as a U.S.-led entity where the Americans effectively call all the shots, more like how the Warsaw Pact worked during the Cold War or the CSTO works now.
So back to the prisoner exchange, the Times article noted that after the U.S. offered to trade Viktor Bout for both Brittany Griner and Paul Whelan, Putin wanted to the U.S. to include Vadim Krasikov, a Russian agent arrested for an assassination in Germany, in the trade. The problem was that Krasikov is in a German prison, not American custody. The U.S. tried to find something that Russia could offer Germany to make the Bout-Krasikov-Griner-Whelan trade work, but Russia would not offer anything for Germany. It was offering to free two Americans in exchange for two Russians. Putin wanted Biden to lean on Germany and get them to free their prisoner for nothing. That obviously could not work, which is why the Americans could not get Whelan out and the deal became a 1-for-1 Bout for Griner deal. But that is only obvious if you understand that Germany is its own entity, with its own interest, not just an American puppet.
This is another expression of Putin's chronic blind spot. But it is also interesting because Germany is arguably a more powerful country than Russia. It doesn't have as big a military as Russia or Russia's nuclear arsenal (although it is under the U.S.'s nuclear umbrella), but Germany has a much bigger economy than Russia and its economy is much more diversified (Russia's is extremely dependent on hydrocarbons (oil and gas), while Germany's economy engines are in a lot of different areas which makes it less vulnerable to downturns in specific markets). So if we are talking about economic power, Germany is not a minor country at all. At least a lot less minor than Russia itself.
