Photo: Kirill Zykov Sputnik Kremlin Pool via Associated Press President Vladimir Putin greeted the released Russian agents Thursday at Vnukovo International Airport near Moscow.
Agence France-Presse in Moscow
Published at 10:30
- Europe
The Kremlin on Friday lifted a corner of the veil on the Russians freed in a historic prisoner swap with the West, acknowledging that some of them were agents working for its intelligence services.
The West and Russia on Thursday carried out the largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War, including American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, who were freed by Moscow and welcomed later that evening by US President Joe Biden near Washington.
Whelan and Gershkovich, along with Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, arrived in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday for medical checkups at a US military hospital.
The agreement allowed for the release of 16 people detained in Russia and Belarus, in exchange for eight Russians imprisoned in the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia and Norway, as well as the two children of a couple of spies.
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“Buenas noches”
Among the Russians who have regained their freedom is Vadim Krassikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of a Georgian from the Chechen minority who had fought against Russian forces between 2000 and 2004.
On Friday, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that he was “a member of the FSB.”
“He served in Alfa,” an elite FSB unit, he told reporters. “He served with several (current) employees of the security service of President Vladimir Putin,” added Mr. Peskov.
As for the couple formed by Artiom Doultsev and Anna Doultseva, released by Slovenia where they had settled in 2017 with Argentinian passports, Mr. Peskov confirmed their membership in the Russian services.
“The children of the illegal immigrants who took the plane yesterday only discovered that they were Russian when the plane took off from Ankara. “They don't speak Russian,” he said.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000In the lexicon of espionage, “clandestines” are agents living under another identity abroad, to carry out their missions.
The couple's minor children, who had been placed in foster care by social services after their parents were arrested, were greeted with a “buenas noches” by Vladimir Putin as they stepped off the plane in Moscow on Thursday night.
“They didn't even know who Putin was. That's how illegal immigrants work and make such sacrifices,” the presidential spokesman said.
Mr. Peskov also ruled out any immediate progress in negotiations over the Ukraine conflict following the exchange, stressing that the two processes were based on “completely different” principles.
“Saving lives”
Three of the former American detainees – Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva – were welcomed by Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at Andrews Air Force Base, where their plane landed around 11:40 p.m. (03:40 GMT).
M. Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, had been detained since March 2023. Alsu Kurmasheva was also imprisoned in Russia, as was Paul Whelan, who had been imprisoned since late 2018 for espionage.
At the White House, surrounded by the families of the freed Americans, Joe Biden had earlier praised the “courageous and bold decisions” of European allies to make this “historic” exchange possible, praising the “significant concessions” made by Germany and the coordination of Turkey.
For German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the decision to release Vadim Krassikov was “difficult” but it “saved lives.”
This vast exchange was a “diplomatic feat,” Joe Biden also congratulated himself.
The White House also revealed that it had worked for months to free the Kremlin’s former number one enemy, Alexei Navalny, before he died in February in an Arctic prison, in unclear circumstances.
Thursday’s exchange is the first between Moscow and the West since the release at the end of 2022 of American basketball player Brittney Griner, detained in Russia on a drug charge, in exchange for that of the famous Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, imprisoned in the United States.
Paris, for its part, called on Moscow on Friday to immediately release other people who are still “arbitrarily detained in Russia”, notably the Frenchman Laurent Vinatier, a collaborator of a Swiss NGO arrested in early June and accused of collecting information on the Russian army.
For Dmitri Oreschkin, an independent political analyst based in Riga, “neither side won” in Thursday's exchange.
“It’s a draw […]. Putin would never have authorized a deal that could be interpreted as a success for America, Germany or the West in general,” he told AFP.