Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Russian residents launched following the Russian-US prisoner swap in Turkey, on the Vnukovo Worldwide Airport in Moscow, Russia, on August 1, 2024. | Photograph Credit score: by way of PTI
The Kremlin stated Friday that Vadim Krasikov, a hitman returned by Germany within the largest prisoner trade between East and West because the Chilly Battle, was an worker of Russia’s FSB safety service and had served in Alpha Group, the FSB’s particular forces unit.
A German courtroom convicted Krasikov of killing a former Chechen militant in a Berlin park in 2019 and President Vladimir Putin hugged him after he stepped off a airplane in Moscow on Thursday night.
Mr. Krasikov, sporting a baseball cap and sports activities shirt, was the primary of the returnees to disembark the airplane and meet Mr. Putin, signaling his significance to Moscow, which prides itself on bringing again intelligence brokers arrested overseas.
Amongst these Moscow has additionally recovered is a Russian household, the Dultsevs, together with their two sons, who have been convicted by a Slovenian courtroom of posing as Argentines to spy on the EU and NATO member state.
The youngsters of the brokers didn’t know they have been Russian
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that the couple have been “illegals” – undercover brokers skilled to pose as foreigners, who spend years dwelling overseas below their cowl identities.
“The youngsters of the ‘unlawful’ intelligence brokers who arrived yesterday came upon that they have been Russian solely after the airplane took off (to Moscow) from Ankara,” Peskov informed reporters.
“Earlier than that, they did not know that they have been Russians and that they’d something to do with our nation. They usually most likely noticed that when the youngsters got here down the steps of the airplane, they did not converse Russian and that Mr. Putin greeted them in Spanish. He stated good evening.”
“Yesterday, youngsters requested their mother and father who was ready for them (in Moscow). They did not even know who Putin was. That is how ‘illegals’ work. They make so many sacrifices due to their dedication to their work.”
Mr Peskov, who stated Russian authorities companies have been working to free different Russians overseas, stated the prisoner swap, which pro-Kremlin analysts have portrayed as a victory for Moscow, had been negotiated by the FSB and the US Central Intelligence Company.
Mr Peskov stated Mr Putin thought of it very important to personally meet the returnees on the airport as they obtained off the airplane.
“It was a tribute to the individuals who serve their nation and who, after very troublesome trials and due to the arduous work of many individuals, have been capable of return to the Motherland,” he stated.
Mr Putin has promised the returnees state awards and a dialogue about their future.
Requested whether or not the prisoner swap was an indication that Russia may be prepared to achieve a compromise deal on Ukraine, Peskov stated they have been totally different conditions and that work on a attainable diplomatic resolution to what Russia calls its “particular army operation” in Ukraine was being carried out on “totally different rules.”
