Putin calls him a “patriot”… What do we know about Krasikov, the Russian released in the swap deal?

The United States and four allies on Thursday reached an agreement with Russia on the largest prisoner swap between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War, including the release of 24 prisoners and minors.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration secretly negotiated a complex exchange process with Russia and many other countries for more than a year and agreed to send back to Russia eight prisoners detained in the West, including Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence for killing a Chechen opposition figure and holds Georgian citizenship in Berlin.

So what do we know about Vadim Krasikov?

Krasikov tops the list of the most prominent Russian figures in the Kremlin’s prisoner swap today. President Vladimir Putin hinted earlier this year that he was interested in releasing Krasikov, a “patriot” detained in Germany.

Today, the German government agreed to release 58-year-old Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2021 for the murder of a former Chechen separatist leader in Berlin on behalf of Russian security services.

According to German authorities, Krasikov killed Selimkhan Khangoshvili, then 40, a Georgian citizen who had fought with Russian forces in Chechnya and later requested asylum in Germany, on August 23, 2019.

Kongoshvili was shot in the back with a silencer near a park in central Berlin. Witnesses saw the gunman throw a bicycle, a rifle and a wig into a nearby river. Police arrested him before he fled on a motorcycle, according to the Associated Press.

In sentencing him to life in prison in 2021, German judges said Krasikov acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who provided him with a false identity, passport and the resources to carry out the killings.

Krasikov is said to have served in the special forces of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB.

For Putin, a KGB veteran, the release of Russian agents is crucial to the success of future covert missions, suggesting that even if agents are captured, Moscow will negotiate their release.

How does this issue affect Russian-German relations?

The case has sparked a major diplomatic dispute between Russia and Germany since it was filed in 2019, including tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.

Germany expelled Russian diplomats after prosecutors concluded Moscow may have been involved in Khangoshvili’s murder. Russia responded in kind, calling Berlin’s accusations “groundless and hostile”.

In a speech by Putin this year, the Kremlin maestro called Krasikov a Russian “patriot” who was being held in a “country allied to the United States” on charges of “eliminating a bandit who killed Russian soldiers in fighting in the Caucasus.”

German reasons

The German government defended Krasikov’s release and return to Russia. “The German government did not take this decision lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebstreit said in Berlin, noting that there is a “conflict between the national interest in the imprisonment of convicted criminals and the freedom and security of those who are in some cases “unjustly imprisoned in Russia for political reasons.” Herbstreit went on to say that solidarity with the United States was another motivation behind the decision, as was the obligation to protect German citizens.