A household of Russian undercover brokers flown to Moscow within the largest prisoner swap between East and West for the reason that Chilly Warfare had been so undercover that their kids found they had been Russian solely after the flight took off, the Kremlin mentioned Friday.
“Earlier than that, they didn’t know that they had been Russians and that that they had something to do with our nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters.
“And so they most likely noticed that when the youngsters got here down the steps of the aircraft they did not communicate Russian and that Putin greeted them in Spanish. He mentioned ‘good night time’.”
Giving new particulars in regards to the swap and people launched, Peskov confirmed that Vadim Krasikov, a hitman launched by Germany, was an worker of Russia’s FSB safety service and had served in Alpha Group, the FSB’s particular forces unit.
Krasikov was convicted by a German court docket of killing a former Chechen militant in a Berlin park in 2019. President Vladimir Putin hugged him after stepping off a aircraft in Moscow on Thursday night.
Krasikov, carrying a baseball cap and sports activities shirt, was the primary of the returnees to disembark the aircraft and meet Putin, demonstrating his significance to Moscow, which prides itself on bringing dwelling intelligence brokers arrested overseas.
Amongst these launched had been so-called “unlawful” undercover brokers: the Dultsevs, a married couple convicted by a Slovenian court docket for posing as Argentines to spy, who had been taken again to Russia with their two kids.
Peskov mentioned that whereas the couple had been held in jail they got solely restricted entry to their kids and feared they might lose their parental rights.
“Yesterday, kids requested their dad and mom 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,” Peskov mentioned.
Peskov mentioned Russian authorities companies had been working to free different Russians overseas. The change had been negotiated by the FSB and the US Central Intelligence Company, he mentioned.
Putin’s choice to satisfy them on the tarmac was “a tribute to the individuals who serve their nation and who after very troublesome trials, and because of the onerous work of many individuals, have been capable of return to the Motherland,” he mentioned.
The prisoner trafficking concerned 24 prisoners, together with 16 who had been transferred from Russia to the West and eight prisoners held within the West who had been despatched again to Russia. Amongst these freed by Moscow had been American journalist Evan Gershkovich and Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who additionally has British citizenship.
Though Moscow launched extra prisoners than it acquired, Russian authorities offered this as a victory and it appeared to go down effectively on the streets of Moscow.
“I’m not remotely political, however regardless of the way you have a look at it, any change is great, that our Russian comrades return dwelling,” mentioned Zulfia, interviewed within the metropolis centre.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former spy wished by Britain for murdering dissident Alexander Litvinenko with atomic poison and now head of an ultra-nationalist social gathering faction within the Russian Duma, mentioned on Telegram: “Our persons are at dwelling with their households. And it’s no pity for every of them at hand over to a bunch of scumbags of international brokers.”
Requested whether or not the prisoner swap was an indication that Russia is perhaps prepared to achieve a compromise deal on Ukraine, Peskov mentioned they had been completely different conditions and that work on a doable diplomatic resolution to what Russia calls its “particular army operation” in Ukraine was being performed on “completely different rules.”
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