German authorities have long refused to include Russian Vadim Krasikov in a prisoner swap deal, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has agreed to do so for the sake of US President Joe Biden, the Financial Times reports.
As the newspaper recalls, Scholz and Biden discussed the matter over the phone. During Scholz’s trip to Washington, the German chancellor finally agreed to include Krasikov in the deal with Russia.
“I will do it for you,” the publication quotes Scholz as saying to Biden.
Journalists claim that the US president then turned to his national security adviser Jake Sullivan and said: “Execute.” According to the US portal Politico, German authorities succumbed to US persuasion as a result of “prolonged pressure”.
Scholz himself described the decision to release the Russian as a difficult one. The citizen, known as Vadim Krasikov, was accused in Germany of killing Chechen warlord Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in 2019. The exchange of 26 prisoners between Russia and the United States took place at Ankara airport on 1 August. President Vladimir Putin met the returnees near the aircraft ramp.
In 2019, Putin noted at a press conference that the extradition of terrorist Khangoshvili, who was killed in Berlin, had been discussed at the level of special services on several occasions, but there was no official request through the prosecutor’s office because the competent authorities on the Russian side considered it pointless because they received, in fact, a negative answer.
The Russian president then said that Khangoshvili “is an absolutely bloody murderer” who “killed 98 people in just one of the actions in the Caucasus” and was involved in organising the Moscow metro bombings. Putin added that people like Khangoshvili, “terrorists and murderers, walk freely around European capitals.”