‘A diplomatic loss for the Kremlin’ Investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov on Russia’s ‘unprecedented’ prisoner swap with the West
Russia and the West conducted a historic prisoner exchange on August 1, swapping 24 people. However, the deal wasn’t just notable for its scale. For the first time, those freed included not only people involved in espionage cases but also political activists imprisoned in Russia for their anti-war stance. Meduza spoke with Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist specializing in the country’s intelligence services, about what makes the composition of this exchange so unique, why Vladimir Putin was so intent on returning FSB hitman Vadim Krasikov from Germany, and how the deal might look for the Kremlin back home.
Like it or not, events in Russia affect you, too. Meduza is here to keep you informed. Please support our work.
On August 1, Russia released 16 political prisoners to the West as part of a highly complex multi-country exchange. In return, Moscow received eight Russian citizens (alleged and convicted spies, hackers, and an assassin) who were imprisoned abroad. While the swap has been widely hailed as the largest of its kind since the Cold War, investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, an expert in Russian security services, called the deal completely “unprecedented” for its inclusion of political activists.
The decision to lump political prisoners in with people accused of espionage or treason also stands out as unusual, he says. An exchange solely involving “spies” might be seen as standard intelligence practice, whereas including the activists introduces a clear political dimension. The Kremlin could have easily separated the groups, Soldatov notes, and he “can’t shake the feeling” that the Russian authorities “wanted to make a political statement with the presented configuration.”
That said, it’s not clear yet what that “statement” might be. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev wrote that Russia has rid itself of “traitors” in return for those who “worked for the Fatherland,” but Soldatov points out that this line isn’t likely to work. “Everyone understands that one of the problems of the Russian political opposition in exile was the lack of leaders, because they were either killed or imprisoned,” he explains. “Now, the opposition has gained these leaders in the form of Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin. Moreover, the largest Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has regained its leader, Oleg Orlov.”
What’s more, Russian propagandists often like to keep score, boasting when the country gets more prisoners than it gives up. This time, “the arithmetic works in the opposite direction” making the exchange itself looks like “a diplomatic loss for the Kremlin,” Soldatov says. Not only did the Russian opposition get its leaders back but the West got a resolution to highly publicized cases, such as that of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. In return, “the bulk of the people the Kremlin got were professional intelligence officers” for whom ending up in prison is a professional risk.
But Soldatov cautions that we may not know the full story, and he doesn’t rule out that the exchange may be “only part of the deal the Kremlin agreed on.” And while democracies “must take humanitarian factors and public opinion into account,” Vladimir Putin isn’t bound by the same rules. “Typically, the Russian authorities, like those of other totalitarian states, are very skilled at playing games involving hostage exchanges,” Soldatov says.
One important part of the Kremlin’s narrative involves Vadim Krasikov, an ex-FSB officer who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili and who was handed over to Russia as part of the exchange. Putin has been seemingly fixated on returning Krasikov to Russia — an obsession that could seem puzzling at times. Not much is known about the former agent. Journalists have linked him to the FSB’s Vympel special forces unit (although on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that Krasikov served in the FSB’s secretive Alpha Group) and to two other murders that took place in Russia, but none of these assassinations would qualify as one of the most high-profile spy plots in history.
According to Soldatov, however, Krasikov holds significant strategic value for Putin for two reasons. First, his release fits Putin’s narrative that the president is “willing to pay any price for his guys who are fulfilling a sacred duty and get them out of any mess.” In the Russian special services, Krasikov is seen as “a hero who avenged his fallen comrades,” someone who “’eliminated’ a person who killed Russian soldiers,” Soldatov explains. And now more than ever, with the war in Ukraine dragging far into its third year, Putin’s image in the special services is “extremely important” to him.
Second, Krasikov is “first and foremost a hitman,” not a spy or intelligence officer, and securing his release is meant to “send a message to those abroad who oppose the Kremlin.” Soldatov notes that political emigration is a “very serious problem” for Putin right now, and the president wants to make clear to those who leave that the Kremlin has the “people and resources” to find them.
A day before the exchange, lawyer Ilya Novikov, whose clients have been part of past prisoner swaps, told Meduza that freeing Krasikov would “greatly increase the number of volunteers willing to become [Putin’s] assassins.” “Potential hitmen will understand that even if they kill, get caught, and are sentenced to life in prison, the homeland will eventually get them out,” he said. “It turns out there aren’t any risks; everything is great.”
“We must not forget that someone will pay for this with their life,” Novikov continued. “This isn’t free, and it’s not a victory of good over evil. The freedom of some will be paid for by the lives of others. We don’t know who yet. But when news breaks that a Russian fugitive or a European official has been killed in Berlin, Riga, or somewhere else, please remember this exchange.”
On Thursday evening, after the swap, Dmitry Medvedev posted a message on his Telegram channel: “And now, let the traitors scramble to find new names and hide themselves under witness protection.”
