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Vladimir Putin keeps his murderers and Kremlin spies close

What the US–Russia prisoner swap tells us about Vladimir Putin’s priorities.

Russians President Vladimir Putin greets Russian national Vadim Krasikov at Vnukovo airport in Moscow on Thursday. Picture: Sputnik/Mikhail Voskresensky
Russians President Vladimir Putin greets Russian national Vadim Krasikov at Vnukovo airport in Moscow on Thursday. Picture: Sputnik/Mikhail Voskresensky

As Vadim Krasikov got off a plane in Moscow, he was met by another veteran of the Russian intelligence services. “Zdorovo!” said President Vladimir Putin, using an informal greeting meaning “howdy” or “hiya”.

He leant forward to ­embrace Krasikov, who was the first of the eight Russian citizens freed on Thursday by Western governments to disembark at Vnukovo airport during the biggest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.

Krasikov, 58, was arrested in Berlin in 2019 after gunning down Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Chechen commander who had fought against Russia.

The Kremlin said at the time it had nothing to do with the ­assassination and insisted Krasikov was a Russian tourist named Vadim Sokolov and his arrest was politically motivated. The Kremlin admitted on Friday that Krasikov was a serving FSB officer who had known Putin before his arrest.

Putin is notorious for never meeting the victims of disasters or terrorist attacks. It is a policy he has stuck to doggedly since he first came to power, when Kremlin spin doctors advised him to avoid being associated with misfortune or failures of any description.

Yet as a former KGB officer who went on to lead its successor, the FSB, Putin knows that by bringing home Krasikov and other Kremlin agents, he will ensure the loyalty of the Russian security services, whose informal motto is “We don’t abandon our own”.

Putin addressed Krasikov and the other newly released members of the Russian secret services on state television: “I want to thank you for your loyalty to the oath, to your duties, and to the homeland, which never forgot about you for a minute. You will all be presented with state awards. We will meet again to discuss your futures.”

Other Russian agents who have been freed from custody in the West have been awarded lucrative jobs. Anna Chapman, the Kremlin agent who was freed in 2010 during a spy swap in Vienna, was handed her own television show. Maria Butina, who served time in the US after pleading guilty to trying to ­influence US politics on behalf of the Kremlin, is now an MP.

Russian state TV sought on Thursday to justify Khangoshvili’s extrajudicial killing in Germany by re-broadcasting Putin’s allegations that the Chechen insurgent had driven a car over the heads of Russian soldiers. Putin made the claim during his interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter, in February, but did not provide evidence to support his claims.

Pavel Rubtsov, a Russian who was being held in Poland on espionage charges, was another of those freed in the deal. As he emerged from the plane in Moscow, he was wearing a T-shirt ­depicting a Stormtrooper from the Star Wars films that read “Your Empire Needs You”.

But the Kremlin doesn’t need all of its citizens. Besides US journalist Evan Gershkovich and the other Western prisoners who were freed during Thursday’s exchange in Turkey, the Kremlin also released eight Russian opposition activists. They were all flown from Ankara to Cologne, where they were met by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Three of the Russians had been imprisoned for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, while the others were ­arrested before the start of the Kremlin’s invasion in 2022.

They were described as enemies of the Russian state and no longer welcome in the Motherland.

Among the dissidents was Liliya Chanysheva, who once headed the offices of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. She was arrested in 2021 after Navalny’s nationwide movement was declared “extremist” and sentenced to 9½ years in prison.

Her husband, Almaz Gatin, said he had known nothing about the swap until it began to unfold. When last Sunday he went to ­deliver a food parcel to the prison camp where Chanysheva was being held in the Perm region, he was informed that she had been moved. He was not given any information about her whereabouts.

“Then other [political prisoners] started disappearing. And I got really scared, because something could have happened to them,” he said. “I was looking for her for four days.”

He found out that she was involved in the prisoner exchange only on Thursday, when Chanysheva had already been released. “I got a call from an unknown number,” Gatin said. “I answered and I heard “Hi, it’s Liliya. I’m free. We are in Ankara and going to ­Cologne. I love you very much. Hi to Mum and Dad!’ It was the best day ever.”

Russian human rights group OVD-info says more than 1200 people remain in Putin’s prisons for their political views.

Western officials acknowledged the dilemma of “setting a bad precedent” as Donald Trump called it, by releasing a Moscow hitrman.

But Scholz insisted the swap was the right choice. “If you had any doubts, you will lose them after talking to those who are now free. Some of them feared for their health and even their lives.”

The Times

Read related topics:Vladimir Putin

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/vladimir-putin-keeps-his-murderers-and-kremlin-spies-close/news-story/cef3a2f1f8ed5e01cb8ca4868d2a2383