Is there logic to Russia's wrongful detentions of Americans?

We can hate the idea that Americans are being taken hostage by foreign governments — a special category of hostage-taking called "wrongful detention" — though this practice is likely to continue until we find the right means of disincentivizing such behavior. But any policy to disincentivize other nations should not be done to the detriment of Americans who are arrested abroad purely for political reasons. The countries that engage in wrongful detentions do not care much about being repudiated from the majority bloc of nations that adhere to the rule of law, so admonishment does little to affect their calculus….