Kremlin says FSB hitman and deep-cover Russian ‘sleeper’ agents among those returned in swop

MOSCOW – The Kremlin said on Aug 2 that Vadim Krasikov – a hitman returned by Germany

in the biggest East-West prisoner swop since the Cold War

– was an employee of Russia’s FSB security service and had served in the FSB’s special forces unit.

Krasikov was convicted by a German court of killing a former Chechen militant in a Berlin park in 2019.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hugged him after he got off a plane in Moscow on Aug 1.

Krasikov, wearing a baseball cap and a tracksuit top, was the first of the returnees to disembark the plane and meet Mr Putin, signalling his importance to Moscow, which prides itself on returning intelligence operatives arrested abroad.

Among those Moscow also got back: a Russian family, the Dultsevs, including their two children, whom a court in Slovenia convicted of pretending to be Argentinians in order to spy on the European Union and Nato member states.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Aug 2 confirmed that the couple were “illegals” – deep-cover agents trained to impersonate foreigners, who spend years living abroad in their cover identities.

“The children of the ‘illegal’ intelligence agents who flew in yesterday only learnt that they were Russian after the plane took off (for Moscow) from Ankara,” Mr Peskov told reporters.

“Before that, they didn’t know that they were Russian and that they had anything to do with our country,” he said.

“The children asked their parents yesterday who it was that was meeting them (in Moscow). They didn’t even know who Putin was. This is how the ‘illegals’ work. They make such sacrifices out of dedication to their work,” said Mr Peskov.

Mr Peskov, who said Russian government agencies were working on freeing other Russians abroad, said the prisoner exchange, which pro-Kremlin analysts have cast as a win for Moscow, was negotiated by the FSB and the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr Peskov said Mr Putin felt it vital to meet the returnees in person at the airport off their plane.

“It was a tribute to people who serve their country and who, after very difficult trials, and thanks to the hard work of many people, have been able to return to the Motherland,” he said.

Mr Putin has promised the returnees state awards and a conversation about their futures.

Asked if the prisoner swop was a sign that Russia might be ready to strike a compromise deal on Ukraine, Mr Peskov said they were different situations, and that work on a possible diplomatic solution to what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine was being conducted on “different principles”. REUTERS