Russia is trying to return Vadim Krasikov to his homeland; he is serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.
How writes Deutsche Welle, the West allows a multilateral exchange, and opposition politician Alexei Navalny may be included in it – his name appears among candidates for a prisoner exchange.
On September 10, The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed Western officials, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is only interested in an exchange for Krasikov. The United States pins its main hopes on the Russian killer convicted in Germany for the rescue of its citizens: former Marine Paul Whelan, who was sentenced in Russia in 2020 to 16 years in prison on charges of espionage, and WSJ correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who has been under arrest for that crime since March. same article.
However, a multilateral exchange of convicted Russian citizens in Western countries for foreigners who are sentenced to prison terms in Russia, as well as for imprisoned political prisoners, such as Navalny, is also being discussed, WSJ sources note.
But the publication’s interlocutors in diplomatic circles in the West note: any negotiations on Krasikov’s exchange will be “sensitive and unpredictable” due to the seriousness of the crime he committed. The murder of Khangoshvili became one of the “unexpectedly painful events for Germany” and caused great indignation in the German elites, so that a potential exchange of Krasikov to Russia could become “the subject of a political conflict, including with the opposition,” according to a German political scientist, director of the Russian program Friedrich Ebert Foundation Alexey Yusupov.
Let us recall that Vadim Krasikov, who was traveling with a fake passport in the name of Vadim Sokolov, killed Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in the Small Tiergarten park in Berlin on August 23, 2019. The police detained the killer, and in December 2021 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Berlin Regional Court concluded that the killer “acted on orders from the central Russian government and was part of the Russian security apparatus.” The verdict states that the murder was supposed to be retaliation for Khangoshvili’s role in the second Chechen war, including the attack on Nazran in 2004.
More Stories
The Minister of Health called the protesters "insignificant people, kafirs"
Gold Switzerland: “We are in the last 5 minutes of our financial system – the collapse of everything is approaching”
Union of Judges: “People’s courts were created against us with the loyal attitude of the government”