The Biden administration has announced a prisoner exchange with Russia to secure the release of three Americans, including a Wall Street Journal reporter Evan GershkovichVeteran Marine Paul Whelan and a Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmashevaas part of a 24-person prisoner exchange complex.
Whelan and Gershkovich were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Russia on espionage charges that their families and the US government have consistently denied as baseless. Kurmasheva, a dual American-Russian citizen, convicted spread false information about the Russian army and was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. they husband told CBS News He believes he was arrested because of a book featuring daily stories opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where he is listed as editor.
The most high-profile Russian citizen to be freed in a highly complex multi-country prisoner exchange is a convicted Russian murderer who spent years serving a life sentence in Germany.
Who is Vadim Krasikov?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested for months that he is open to freeing an American prisoner in exchange for Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to death for a 2019 murder in Berlin that a German judge said was an assassination carried out on the orders of the Russian government. . Krasikov is said to have worked for Russia’s domestic spy service, the FSB.
Krasikov was convicted in 2021 of killing a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent in Berlin, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, who was a Chechen rebel involved in the long war against Russian forces in Chechnya.
The judges who convicted Krasikov called Khangoshvili’s killing an act of Russian “state terrorism,” and the incident sparked a diplomatic row between Moscow and Berlin.
Krasikov’s name surfaced about two years ago, when US officials told CBS News Moscow has asked for a deal to replace him Whelan, a US Marine veteran who at the time was the highest-ranking American imprisoned in Russia. Negotiations on the exchange in the summer of 2022 collapsed without an agreement. CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang said Moscow had been seeking a “spy-for-spy” swap of Whelan for Krasikov, but Berlin had rejected the proposal.
Picture taken by REUTERS
It was not immediately clear what changed Germany’s calculus to make the exchange expected on Thursday, but Belarus’ state-run BeITA news agency said President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s Putin, had decided to pardon Germans sentenced to death in the country for terrorism and other charges. apart.
The AFP news agency said Thursday that Germany’s foreign office had confirmed in an email that Rico Krieger had been pardoned in Belarus, with a spokesman saying that “the news is a relief.”
In an interview broadcast by Belarusian state TV last week, Krieger – speaking as a prisoner and possibly under pressure – said Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service had told him to photograph military sites in Belarus in October and try to detonate explosives on railway lines. country. There was an explosion on a railway south-west of the Belarusian capital Minsk, but no one was injured.
He expressed regret for his alleged actions in the interview and said he hoped Lukashenko would forgive him.
Other Russian nationals are expected to be released by various countries as part of the swap deal, including a husband and wife who were sentenced by Slovenia just Wednesday on espionage charges.
Husband and wife spies in Slovenia
Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva pleaded guilty to spying charges Wednesday in a court in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. The pair were sentenced to 19 months in prison but were released on time served and ordered to leave the country and not return for five years, according to The Associated Press
The two had become Argentine citizens to live in Slovenia in 2017, using false identities where Artem founded an IT company, according to AP, and Anna ran an online art gallery. He was arrested in 2022.
Local media said the couple used Slovenia as a base from where they visited NATO and European Union countries to deliver orders and cash to friends of their superiors in Moscow.
University lecturer in Norway
Norwegian security services accused a man working as a university lecturer of espionage activities in late 2022, saying they had discovered the true identity of Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin. Mikushin, in his mid-40s, is believed to be a Brazilian academic, but officials say he is actually a Russian spy.
CBS News partner network BBC News reported in October 2022 that Norwegian media cited security service spokesman Thomas Blom as saying that Mikushin, who used the false name José Assis Giammaria to apply for a lectureship at a Norwegian university, was charged with gathering intelligence related to it. for state secrets.
The BBC quoted Christo Grozev of investigative journalism group Bellingcat as saying that Mikushin is believed to have ties to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
Spanish-Russian journalist in Poland
Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, who also goes by the Spanish name Pablo Gonzalez, has been working as a freelance journalist for several years, including for American and European media, when he attracted the attention of the authorities while traveling in eastern Ukraine with a photographer. He was ordered to report to authorities in Kyiv in February 2022, shortly before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country.
In February this year, the International Federation of Journalists said he was the only journalist imprisoned in the European Union and, together with the organization Reporters Without Borders, called for his release and accused the Polish authorities of failing to provide him with evidence.
A month after his arrest, Voice of America asked Poland’s Internal Security Agency about Rubtsov’s arrest and was given a statement that he had been identified as a GRU agent.
“He carried out activities for Russia using his journalistic status. As a result, he was able to move freely throughout Europe and the world, including zones affected by armed conflicts and areas of political tension,” the agency said, quoted by VOA, adding that they had gathered information that , if used by Russia, “could have a direct negative impact on the internal and external security and defense of our country.”
2 cybercriminals in the United States
Roman Seleznev is the son of a Russian lawmaker who was sentenced by a US court in December 2017 to 27 years in prison on charges of cyber fraud.
A federal jury convicted Seleznev years before hacking US business networks to steal credit card information, in addition to ring-leading an international cyber-theft scheme. He was convicted on 38 charges, including computer hacking and wire fraud. The authorities said he targeted restaurants and other businesses in Washington state, stealing credit card numbers to sell on internet forums. Prosecutors said his actions resulted in nearly $170 million in credit card losses worldwide, making him “one of the most prolific credit card merchants in history.”
Kremlin-linked Russian billionaire Vladislav Klyushin sentenced last year engaged in a $90 million insider trading scheme using secret revenue information about companies, including Microsoft, stolen from computer networks in the US
According to The Associated Press, Klushin ran a Moscow-based information technology company with ties to the Russian government.
“For nearly three years, he and his accomplices have repeatedly hacked into US computer networks to get tomorrow’s headlines today,” Massachusetts US Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement when he was indicted in February 2023.
Alleged smuggler of military equipment in the US
US prosecutors announced charges in 2022 against seven people, including Russian citizen Vadim Konoshchenokaccusing them of a coordinated effort to evade US export laws to smuggle American-made military-grade equipment into Russia.
According to the unsealed indictment of the Eastern District of New York, from 2017 until at least the spring of 2022, Konoshchenok, Yevgeniy Grinin, Aleksey Ippolitov, Boris Livshits, Svetlana Skvortsova, Vadim Yermolenko and Alexey Brayman used shell companies, fake addresses and fakes. shipping label for transporting equipment to Russia.
Exhibition management
They are accused of smuggling items including “sophisticated electronics and advanced testing equipment” for use in nuclear weapons development and military and other applications. Investigators said the items were repackaged and shipped from various “intermediate locations” after reaching Europe and Asia, before being sent to Russia.
Prosecutors said that, in October 2022, Konoshchenok, who was suspected by Russian intelligence officials, was intercepted by the police in Estonia on the country’s border with Russia, who allegedly had 35 types of semiconductors, thousands of 6.5mm bullets made in Nebraska. and ammunition for sniper riffles.
CBS News’ Robert Legare contributed to this report.
