Moscow, Aug 2 (EFE).- Eight Russians, including a convicted murderer, who were part of a prisoner exchange with the United States and several European countries were spies for the Russian military and intelligence services, the Kremlin said Friday.
The prisoner swap involving 24 people, which was carried out on Thursday, is the biggest since the Cold War and comes amid apparent efforts to reduce diplomatic tensions over the war in Ukraine.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press conference that one of those released, Vadim Krasikov, is a member of the Federal Security Service (FSB) – the successor to the Soviet era KGB – and that three others were also undercover agents or working as Russian military spies.
Krasikov was returned by Germany, where he was serving a sentence for murdering a Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019.
Krasikov and the other Russians who were returned on Thursday were given a hero’s by Russian president Vladimir Putin, with Peskov calling the reception a “tribute to those people who serve their country and who, after very difficult trials, thanks to the hard work of many people, were able to return to the motherland.”
Krasikov, whom Putin embraced as he descended the stairs of the plane after landing in Moscow, was a companion of several of the president’s bodyguards.
He was “a member of the elite ‘Alpha’ group of the FSB, in which he served with some members of the president’s security corps,” Peskov explained.
Speaking to the Western press, the Kremlin spokesman justified the assassination by Krasikov, saying the FSB hitman was doing his patriotic duty by eliminating a criminal linked to Chechen separatist guerrillas.
Krasikov should have been exchanged in February for the late Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, but Putin torpedoed the swap at the last moment, according to the politician’s aides.
Experts believe that the swap is unprecedented in history, including numerous activists and human rights defenders, which some analysts see as a first step for future negotiations with the US on Ukraine and strategic security.
In this regard, Peskov on Friday insisted the swap and the peace talks over Ukraine are “completely different issues.” EFE
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