https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ck7gwe808yet
On Thursday, August 1, an unprecedented prisoner exchange took place, involving seven countries at once, and as a result, 26 people were released. Among them were Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and FSB special forces officer Vadim Krasikov. The United States had been trying to return the former for over a year, while Russian President Vladimir Putin personally wanted to obtain the release of the latter. Rumors about exchanging Gershkovich for Krasikov had been circulating since the journalist’s arrest in March 2023, but the deal that ultimately took place turned out to be much larger. An exchange of this scale obviously requires months of coordination. Officials and security officials are always extremely reluctant to comment on these processes, primarily out of fear that this will negatively affect the outcome of the negotiations. But on August 1, after the 16 prisoners had already left Russian territory, the American press began to publish details of how the US and its allies had managed to achieve success.
At a December press conference, Vladimir Putin, in response to a question about Gershkovich’s fate, said that dialogue on the exchange was underway, but the American side had to “hear” Moscow’s demands. Both Berlin and Washington took the hint. Sullivan tried to find out from his German colleagues whether they were ready to hand over Krasikov. “Not yet,” they replied. But Scholz himself began telling members of his cabinet that if the US gave him a formal request for such a deal, he would agree.
On February 8, conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson aired an interview with Vladimir Putin, in which he practically directly said that the exchange of Gershkovich was possible if Krasikov returned. That same day, Scholz and Biden discussed the parameters of the deal in the Oval Office. They agreed that Krasikov would be at the exchange center, in exchange for whom Russia would have to release several prisoners at once: not only Americans, but also politician Alexei Navalny. In addition, Moscow was to receive Russians detained in Slovenia and Norway.
The issue of the exchange was also discussed at the NATO summit. According to CNN, in June, US intelligence proposed a scheme for the exchange to Russia. In July, Moscow responded with formal consent. US President Joe Biden was involved in planning the deal until the very end.
As it became known on the day of the exchange, the intermediary in the deal involving seven countries was Turkish intelligence. Burns personally flew to Turkey to discuss its details. All this took place in conditions of maximum secrecy.
On Thursday evening, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at a briefing at Cologne-Bonn Airport, where a plane with German citizens and prisoners, whom Putin released in exchange for Russian agents, arrived late in the evening. Scholz said that the decision to exchange was not an easy one for Berlin. He explained it by the risk to the health and life of “those detained for political reasons in Russia.” A little earlier, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing its sources in the German federal prosecutor’s office, reported that the agency was disappointed with the decision to extradite Krasikov to Russia. According to the newspaper, Justice Minister Mark Buschmann instructed Prosecutor General Jens Rommel to “refrain from further execution of the sentence” against Krasikov in order to exchange him.
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