Germany has paid a heavy price in the historic prisoner exchange between the West and Russia in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday. Among the 10 people released from European and American prisons and greeted in Moscow with enthusiastic handshakes by Vladimir Putin are not only spies and agitators; there is also a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment. Vadim Krasikov, a 58-year-old Russian, is undoubtedly the most controversial prisoner: in August 2019, he shot dead a Georgian refugee in broad daylight in Berlin’s Tiergarten park.
The murder caused a huge stir in Germany. The Russian approached his victim on a mountain bike. He shot him down with a first shot and then, once on the ground, shot him again in the head to make sure of the result. The gun and the wig he was wearing were later found in the Spree River. The authorities were shocked and outraged. A Russian envoy had carried out the revenge of Putin’s secret service, the FSB, on an opponent on German soil, right in the centre of the capital. The victim, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who lived in Berlin as a refugee, had fought against the Russians in the second Chechen war.
The prosecutor’s office immediately suspected the Kremlin of masterminding the murder and made it public, which soured relations between Moscow and Berlin, which expelled two Russian diplomats in response. The timing was extremely sensitive. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was at the time in Berlin’s Charité hospital recovering from poisoning with a nerve agent manufactured by the Russian military.
Krasikov’s release has provoked mixed feelings in Germany. Most politicians welcome the exchange, but some interpret it as a capitulation to the Kremlin. “It was a difficult decision,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted on Thursday evening, minutes before receiving the exchanged Europeans at Cologne-Bonn airport. “For us, the obligation to protect German citizens was important, as was solidarity with the United States,” he said.
Berlin’s sacrifice, which freed Krasikov after only five years of his life sentence, was acknowledged in Washington. US President Joe Biden expressly thanked Scholz for his help and highlighted the “significant concessions” Germany had made to allow the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. “This is a powerful example of why it is vital to have friends in this world. Our alliances make our people safer,” he added.
The foreign minister revealed that the secret negotiations had been going on for “months.” For the United States, he said, “the release of the journalist from The Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.” Key to that exchange was the handover of Krasikov. According to German media, Berlin was initially reluctant, but Washington’s pressure eventually paid off. The talks between the two partners, initially led by foreign ministers Annalena Baerbock for Germany and Antony Blinken for the US, escalated to the highest level: Biden and Scholz even discussed the issue months after Navalny’s death in a Russian prison, which according to media such as The Spiegelwas part of the agreement.
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Scholz’s government may be pleased to have saved five Germans and leading Russian opposition figures from Siberian penal colonies, but the exchange has left a bitter taste in Berlin. Some media outlets are hailing Krasikov’s handover as a “victory for Putin” and believe it could give the Kremlin more room to plan contract killings on European soil.
The victim’s relatives were also upset by the decision to release Krasikov, who became a hero for the Russian security apparatus after the murder in Berlin, early. “This is devastating news for us,” the relatives told the DPA news agency through their lawyer, Inga Schulz. “On the one hand, we are happy that lives have been saved. On the other hand, we are very disappointed that there seems to be no justice, even in countries where the law is the supreme authority,” they added.
Criticism also comes from the judiciary, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeinewhere the order of the Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann, to stop the execution of the sentence of Krasikov has not gone down well. According to this newspaper, sources in Karlsruhe (seat of the German Constitutional Court) regret that it was decided to give instructions to the judiciary in what is a political decision instead of managing a pardon by the federal president.
The opposition, on the other hand, is generally supportive of the government. Scholz revealed in his sober statement at Cologne airport that, given the seriousness of the matter, he decided to inform the leader of the conservatives, Friedrich Merz, from the outset. “He has expressly assured me that he agrees with the decisions of the government,” said the chancellor, who appeared alone behind a lectern. Unlike in the United States, in Germany there have been no images of the chancellor receiving the freedmen, a moment that Scholz described as “very moving.”
Merz has not yet made a public statement, but some members of his party have expressed criticism of the decision. “I fear that the release of the Tiergarten murderer sets a precedent that could be exploited politically on a massive scale by Russia,” he told the newspaper. Tagesspiegel Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU deputy and security expert, added: “Russia is a terrorist state that is now deliberately trying to establish hostage diplomacy.”
The German prisoners released by Russia have very different profiles from those in the United States. Among them is Rico Krieger, a 30-year-old German jailed in Belarus for terrorism and espionage and sentenced to death by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. He was pardoned three days ago. It is not known what he was doing in the former Soviet republic, the only one in Europe where capital punishment is still applied. Krieger admitted his guilt and asked for forgiveness, in a confession that Berlin describes as “forced.” Another is Patrick Schöbel, a 38-year-old from Hamburg, who traveled to Russia last year to see a woman he had met on the Internet and was arrested at the airport for carrying gummy bears containing cannabis.
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