Who Is Vadim Krasikov? The Convicted Russian Killer Putin Wants To Swap With Jailed U.S. Reporter Evan Gershkovich

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Topline

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to allowing jailed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich to return home as long as Washington was willing to negotiate on “certain conditions,” in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired on Thursday, signaling a prisoner swap with a convicted killer.

Putin suggested he was open to a prisoner swap for allow for the release of jailed U.S. journalist … [+] Evan Gershkovich.

Key Facts

In the two-hour interview shared on Carlon’s X account, Putin reiterated the Kremlin’s allegations against Gershkovich, claiming the Wall Street Journal reporter was caught trying to access “classified information” and accused him of being “essentially controlled by the U.S. authorities.”

But Putin said there was “no taboo” in resolving the issue and said he did not “rule out” Gershkovich returning to “his motherland,” adding: “It doesn’t even make sense to keep him [Gershkovich] in prison in Russia.”

He said the release could happen if U.S. officials are willing to “think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing.”

Putin then heavily implied that Gershkovich’s release would require a prisoner swap involving a Russian man, who he did not identify by name, serving a life sentence in a German prison after being convicted of murdering a dissident in Berlin in 2019.

Putin appeared to be referencing Russian national Vadim Krasikov as he mentioned the man was serving a prison sentence in a “U.S.-allied country” for “liquidating a bandit” who he claims was responsible for the deaths of several Russian soldiers.

Key Background

In 2019, Georgia-born Chechen dissident Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was shot dead in a park in Berlin by a Russian man riding a bicycle. The assassin was later identified as Vadim Krasikov, who had entered Germany using false documents. The assassination triggered a major diplomatic row between Russia and Germany and led to the ouster of two Russian diplomats from Berlin. A German court later convicted Krasikov of the killing, which it referred to as a “state-ordered murder,” and sentenced him to life in prison. Putin and the Kremlin strongly refuted the allegations of the Russian government’s involvement in the murder calling it groundless. While Putin didn’t name Krasikov in his interview, he referred to him as a Russian “patriot” who carried out the killing in “one of the European capitals.”

Tangent

This is not the first instance of Russia demanding the release of a high-profile convicted criminal in exchange for an American imprisoned in the country. In 2022, U.S. officials released convicted arms dealer Victor Bout as part of a prisoner swap with WNBA star Brittney Griner—who had been held in a Russian prison for nearly two years. Bout was in the middle of a 25-year prison sentence handed to him in 2011 after being convicted of selling arms to the leftist Colombian rebel group FARC. Bout emerged as a prominent global arms dealer in the 1990s and 2000s after the fall of the Soviet Union as he supplied former Red Army weapons to militias and terror groups across the world. The arms dealer’s exploits earned him the moniker “The Merchant of Death” and even led to a 2005 Hollywood film starring Nicholas Cage—“Lord of War”—loosely based on his life.

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