Russia has conducted a prisoner exchange with the United States and Germany. According to The Insider, political prisoners Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu Kurmasheva, Andrei Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko, Liliya Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Evan Gershkovich, Rico Krieger, Kevin Leake, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schoebel, Paul Whelan and Herman Moyzhes have been released. In exchange, Russia received FSB killer Vadim Krasikov, spies and swindlers.
How did the negotiations go?
Negotiations on a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West have been ongoing for several years through various channels and in various configurations. In early 2022, The Insider journalist Hristo Grozev (then a Bellingcat investigator) proposed that the Americans conduct a joint exchange with the Germans, where the key figure on the Western side would be Vadim Krasikov (convicted thanks to The Insider and Bellingcat’s investigation), and on the Russian side, Alexei Navalny. Initially, the Kremlin considered it necessary to negotiate only with the United States, based on its understanding that Washington could influence the Europeans. However, Krasikov was arrested by Germany, and without Berlin’s participation, the negotiations could not move forward. Putin hoped to exchange Krasikov for the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested specifically for this purpose (moreover, the negotiators learned of Gershkovich’s sentence even before it was officially handed down). But Putin’s plan failed, since the Germans were not at all interested in the “American spies” arrested in Russia and were only ready to discuss exchanging Krasikov for Navalny, whom they knew well after the poisoning story.
The negotiations were also complicated by the fact that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock believed that the release of Krasikov’s killer was unacceptable and sent a bad signal. Although this opinion was not dominant in the ruling coalition, it was taken into account in the US, as Baerbock was perceived as the main ally with Ukraine in Germany in the context of the war, and this topic was more important to them than the exchange. However, by October 2023, a consensus was generally reached, and everything seemed to be heading towards an 8-for-8 exchange, with Krasikov and Navalny as the main figures for the exchange. Russia, however, did not confirm until the last moment that it was ready to exchange Navalny. In the end, it turned out that Putin had other plans for Navalny – he was killed in prison, after which the West lost all interest in the negotiations.
In April 2024, the Germans made it clear that they might still be interested in an exchange, but only an asymmetric one: for one Krasikov, Putin would have to give up many political prisoners at once. The situation in Russia was also changing dynamically. Initially, the key figure in the negotiations on the Russian side was Sergei Beseda, head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, responsible for relations with foreigners. Beseda’s position was shaken after a series of failures and corruption scandals, and he clearly had no time for a prisoner exchange. In June 2024, Putin dismissed Beseda, replacing him with Alexei Komkov. He zealously took up his new duties, including reviving the negotiation process. Around the same time, the German BND, represented by its deputy head Philipp Wolf, officially joined the negotiations. After that, the negotiations resumed with renewed vigor, and literally within a few weeks the parties agreed on their positions.
The Russians were released by a presidential pardon. Contrary to stereotypes, it does not formally require not only an admission of guilt, but even a request for pardon.
Who did Russia get?
Vadim Krasikov
A contract killer who served in the Vympel unit of the FSB Special Purpose Center and later became the perpetrator of a number of contract killings, including businessman Alexander Kozlov in Karelia in 2007, businessman Albert Nazranov in Moscow in 2015, Chechen refugee Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in 2019, and others.
Krasikov was put on the wanted list in Russia, but he managed to avoid the life sentence that threatened him, and instead of going to jail, he ended up at the FSB Special Purpose Center training base . After several months of training, he was given a fake passport in the name of Sokolov, a modernized Glock pistol, and sent to Berlin to deal with Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. Putin publicly called Khangoshvili a terrorist, but no evidence of his involvement in any terrorist attacks was ever presented, and no official requests for Khangoshvili’s extradition to Germany as a terrorist were received. After the murder, Russia denied any involvement in it, but The Insider managed to find the real name of “Sokolov” and documents confirming his affiliation with the special services, after which he received a life sentence in Germany. After this, Putin stopped hiding his connection with Krasikov, called the killer a “patriot” and publicly stated his desire to exchange him for Evan Gershkovich.
Slovenian illegals
Spouses Artem and Anna Dultsev lived in Slovenia posing as Argentine citizens Ludwig Gish and Maria Rosa Mayer Muñoz. They were arrested in Ljubljana in late 2022. Maria posed as an art gallery owner, but The Insider found out that no one knew her on the Slovenian art market.
Hacker Roman Seleznev
A Russian hacker has been sentenced to 27 years in prison in the United States for computer fraud and identity theft. He had been in custody since 2014 and was finally sentenced in 2018. His sentence was the longest in U.S. history for a cybercrime. Prosecutors justified the long prison term by saying that Seleznev pioneered the carding industry (i.e. stealing bank card data), which helped fuel the growth of the underground market. In the indictment, they noted that Seleznev had become “one of the most revered hackers in the criminal world.”
Seleznev had been selling stolen bank card data (mostly belonging to US citizens) since 2003. US intelligence agencies had been monitoring his activity on hacker forums since the mid-2000s. They estimated that Seleznev’s activities had caused damages in excess of $169 million.
Dozhd TV channel sources claim that the hacker was caught in the Maldives in 2014 following a tip from the deputy head of the FSB Information Security Center (ISC) Sergei Mikhailov and his colleagues. Mikhailov allegedly passed on operational information about Russian cybercriminals to American intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA. It was the arrest of Seleznev, who is the son of State Duma deputy Valery Seleznev (LDPR party), that allegedly became the last straw for launching an investigation into Mikhailov himself and his subordinates. In 2017, Mikhailov was detained and subsequently convicted of treason, and his case became the reason for the end of cooperation between Russia and the United States in investigating cybercrimes.
Businessman Vladislav Klyushin
On September 7, 2023, a Boston court in the United States found Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin guilty of insider trading and sentenced him to 9 years in prison.
In March 2021, Klyushin was arrested in Switzerland and subsequently extradited to U.S. authorities. He was accused of participating in a scheme to illegally use confidential information to obtain financial gain in the securities market. According to the indictment, the insider trading scheme, organized outside the United States, brought in $93 million in profits for the participants in the case.
Norwegian illegal immigrant
In May 2022, a Norwegian court charged an employee of the Arctic University of Tromsø with espionage and published his full name. The spy turned out to be Mikhail Valerievich Mikushin, born on August 19, 1978. He posed as a Brazilian citizen José Assis Giammaria (born in 1984) and in recent years successfully worked at the Norwegian University of Tromsø. The Insider was able to confirm Mikushin’s affiliation with the GRU, and at the same time studied his biography, coming to the conclusion that the “professor” did everything to fail.
Vadim Konoshchenko
One of the participants in the smuggling network “Sernia”, which The Insider previously reported on. The companies in this network illegally exported high-tech equipment from the United States and supplied it to Russian state-owned companies through EU countries. The total volume of state contracts for the core of the “Sernia” network amounted to 5.2 billion rubles, and for peripheral companies – 1.2 billion rubles.
Konoshchenko was detained in Narva, Estonia, in November 2022 while smuggling goods into Russia in his car. He had previously been stopped by Estonian border guards several times while transporting semiconductors, other electronics, and sniper rifle bullets to Russia. However, he continued smuggling until he was arrested and extradited to the United States. American authorities believe that Konoshchenko served in Russian intelligence, and was not just a smuggler. Investigative documents reviewed by The Insider state that he called himself an FSB colonel and that the entire Sernia network was under the control of Russian intelligence services. In the mail seized from Konoshchenko, American authorities found a photograph of him in an FSB uniform, which he sent to one of his contacts with the caption “passport photo.”
As The Insider found out , Sernia’s clients included FSB institutes, military communications developers, as well as the FSO, FSIN, and other Russian government agencies and security services. The network had been operating since at least 2017.
Whom Russia liberated
Vladimir Kara-Murza
In April 2023, the court sentenced activist and publicist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison. He had been in a Moscow pretrial detention center since April 2022 on charges of spreading “fakes” about the army, collaborating with an undesirable organization, and treason.
Kara-Murza was accused of treason for public speeches in the US and Europe, where he spoke about state terror for political reasons, election fraud, human rights violations in Russia, and called it an aggressor country in the war with Ukraine. According to the investigation, in doing so he “created threats to the external security and territorial integrity” of Russia. As reported by the media, Kara-Murza, for example, was accused of harming Russia “for selfish reasons” when he participated in the ceremony of presenting the Helsinki Committee Prize to political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev.
In 2021, The Insider and Bellingcat published an investigation that provided evidence that FSB Research Institute 2 employees had made two attempts to poison the opposition leader, and named the suspects. Kara-Murza soon filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee about attempted murder, but his request to open a criminal case was denied.
After the assassination attempts, the politician began to have serious health problems. He also suffers from a serious chronic disease that prevents him from serving his sentence in a penal colony – polyneuropathy. On July 10, after repeated refusals, he was placed in the Omsk Hospital 11 of the Federal Penitentiary Service for a medical examination.
Ilya Yashin
On December 9, 2022, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow sentenced Yashin to 8.5 years in a general regime penal colony under the article on disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army, which was the strictest sentence under this article at that time.
The case was opened because of Yashin’s stream about the crimes of the Russian military in Bucha. Before that, he was fined 30 thousand rubles under the article on “discrediting the Russian army” for publishing a photo from 1969 from protests against the Vietnam War with the caption: “‘Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.’ 50 years have passed, but the slogans are still relevant.” In total, four protocols were drawn up against Yashin under the article on “discrediting” the army.
Alsu Kurmasheva
Editor of Idel.Realii (Radio Liberty project). Citizen of Russia and the USA. 47 years old. Lived and worked in Prague, Czech Republic.
In May 2023, Kurmasheva came to Russia for family reasons. When she tried to fly back to the Czech Republic on June 2, she was detained at the Kazan airport. Kurmasheva had both her Russian and American passports confiscated and was later fined for failing to inform Russian authorities of her dual citizenship.
On October 18, Kurmasheva, who remained in Tatarstan waiting for her documents to be returned, was detained in connection with a criminal case initiated under Part 3 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: “Failure to comply with the obligation established by the legislation of the Russian Federation to submit to the authorized body the documents required for inclusion in the register of foreign agents.” The journalist was not included in the register of “foreign agents.” As Kurmasheva’s lawyer Edgar Matevosyan explained in an interview with The Insider, in the opinion of the Russian authorities, the journalist, as a potential “foreign agent,” should have reported on herself.
In December, it became known that another case had been opened against Kurmasheva, this time under the article on military “fakes”. The reason was her editorial work on the book “No to War. 40 Stories of Russians Opposing the Invasion of Ukraine”. Since October 2023, the journalist has been in pretrial detention.
On July 19, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan sentenced Alsa Kurmasheva to 6 years and 6 months in prison under the article on dissemination of “fakes” about the Russian army (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The case was heard behind closed doors. The journalist’s lawyer, Edgar Matevosyan, said that his client had been given a final verdict and there would be no more trials.
Evan Gershkovich
A Wall Street Journal journalist has been sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia for espionage. Gershkovich became the first employee of a foreign media outlet in the history of modern Russia to be arrested on such charges. He was arrested in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg when he flew in to interview PR specialist Yaroslav Shirshchikov about public attitudes toward recruitment to the Wagner PMC. Russian security forces followed the reporter while he was on one of his editorial assignments, recorded his movements on camera, and put pressure on his sources. The journalist assumed that his phone might be tapped. During another trip, to Pskov, he was also followed and filmed by unknown individuals.
According to the prosecution, Gershkovich “on assignment from the CIA in March 2023 collected classified information in the Sverdlovsk region about the activities of the defense enterprise JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod for the production and repair of military equipment” and did so “in compliance with strict secrecy measures.” According to the photographer who worked with him, the reporter was collecting material for an article about how people in Russian regions perceive the war, for which he visited Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Tagil and planned to go to other cities. According to media reports, Gershkovich was also interested in recruiting for the Wagner PMC.
Oleg Orlov
A criminal case against 70-year-old human rights activist and Memorial chairman Oleg Orlov was opened in March 2023 after searches at Memorial were conducted as part of another case — the rehabilitation of Nazism. During the investigation, equipment and archival documents were seized from the organization. Orlov himself was accused of writing an article in which he called Russia’s military actions in Ukraine “a severe blow to the future of the country.” The article, titled “They wanted fascism — they got it,” was published in the French publication Mediapart, and then the human rights activist posted it on his Facebook page.
On October 11, 2023, the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Oleg Orlov to a fine of 150 thousand rubles. The prosecutor’s office appealed the court’s verdict, demanding that the punishment be increased to three years’ imprisonment. On February 27, 2024, the court found Orlov guilty and sentenced him to 2.5 years’ imprisonment in a penal colony. Immediately after his arrival at the Vodnik Pre-trial Detention Center No. 5, 70-year-old Orlov was offered to sign a consent form to be sent to the front in Ukraine. When he reminded them of his age, the pre-trial detention center employees said that they were “not embarrassed by anything.”
Oleg Orlov became a member of the Memorial initiative group, which advocates for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in the USSR, in 1988. He was a trusted person of human rights activist Sergei Kovalev during the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, worked in the Supreme Soviet apparatus, worked on laws on the humanization of the penitentiary system of Russia, on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. At the same time, he became the chairman of Memorial.
Since 1994, he worked in the military conflict zone in Chechnya, personally met with Chechen leaders Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov, participated in prisoner exchange negotiations, and inspected hospitals and prisoner of war camps. In 1995, he participated in negotiations with terrorists who, under the command of Shamil Basayev, committed a terrorist attack in Budyonnovsk. After the successful completion of the negotiations, members of Kovalev’s group (including Oleg Orlov) became voluntary hostages as guarantors of the agreements reached in exchange for the release of most of the hostages.
In 2007, on the eve of an opposition rally in Nazran, Oleg Orlov and a group of REN TV journalists were seized by armed men in masks. Threatening them with weapons, they put black bags over the hostages’ heads and drove them out of town to a field, where they were dragged out of the car, thrown to the ground, and beaten. In 2017, the ECHR found the Russian authorities responsible for Orlov’s abduction in Nazran.
Even before the criminal case in June 2021, Orlov complained to the ECHR about threats from the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has repeatedly called for killing, imprisoning, and intimidating people for insulting honor on the Internet. “Those who violate the harmony between people, who engage in gossip, discord, if we do not stop them, killing, imprisoning, intimidating, nothing will work,” Kadyrov said. According to him, one cannot “leave a person who insults honor, even if the whole world burns in blue flames, the laws of all countries will be violated.”
Alexandra Skochilenko
Skochilenko was detained on April 11, 2022, after her home had been searched. According to investigators, on March 31, the artist distributed information about the Russian Armed Forces in the Perekrestok store: instead of price tags, the girl inserted messages about civilians killed in the shelling of the Mariupol Drama Theater. The investigator considers the information distributed to be false, and the act itself to be motivated by political hatred. The Investigative Committee believes that Skochilenko “was aware of the real state of affairs in the theater of military operations.”
On November 16, 2023, the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Alexandra to 7 years in prison. Shortly after the verdict, the judge in the Skochilenko case was promoted to deputy chairman of the Kalininsky District Court.
Alexandra has serious health problems: a congenital heart defect, gluten intolerance and bipolar disorder. In her final statement, the artist spoke about daily stomach pain and serious heart problems. She asked the judges to consider the harm that her stay in the pretrial detention center is causing her and to release her under house arrest. But the appeal was rejected.
Andrey Pivovarov
On May 31, 2021, former head of Open Russia Andrei Pivovarov was removed from a St. Petersburg-Warsaw flight and detained at Pulkovo Airport after passing through passport control. A criminal case was opened against him under the article on carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization. The basis for the charge was that on August 12, 2020, while in Krasnodar, Pivovarov published on Facebook “information material ‘United Democrats'” with a fundraising campaign.
Later, 30 posts and one repost on Facebook were added to the charges, which, among other things, concern the protests in Khabarovsk, disagreement with the amendments to the Constitution, and support for those detained at rallies. In July 2022, Pivovarov was sentenced to 4 years in prison. In addition, he is prohibited from engaging in social and political activities, including using the Internet, for 8 years. In May 2023, he was transferred to a strict regime in a Karelian colony and was repeatedly placed in a punishment cell.
Ksenia Fadeeva
Former head of Navalny’s headquarters in Tomsk. In December 2023, she was sentenced to 9 years in prison on charges of organizing the activities of an extremist community using her official position and participating in a non-profit organization that infringes on the personality and rights of citizens. In addition, Fadeeva was fined 500 thousand rubles.
The Memorial human rights society considers Fadeeva a political prisoner, since the reason for the persecution was her work at Navalny’s headquarters. Since 2020, Fadeeva sat in the Tomsk City Duma. She was stripped of her powers in June of this year after the sentence came into force.
Liliya Chanysheva
The former head of Alexei Navalny’s Ufa headquarters, was arrested in Ufa in November 2021. She became the first defendant in the case of creating an “extremist community” after the FBK and Navalny’s headquarters were recognized as such – despite the fact that they were immediately disbanded. In fact, Chanysheva’s extremist charges were brought retroactively for activities at a time when the organizations had not yet been recognized as extremist.
In June 2023, she was found guilty of creating an extremist community, calling for extremism, and creating an organization that violates citizens’ rights. However, she was sentenced only under the article on organizing an “extremist community.” The activist was released from punishment for the other two articles due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In her final statement, Chanysheva stated that she was being tried for legal political activity. The prosecutor requested 12 years in prison. On June 4, 2023, she was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. In April 2024, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan toughened the sentence from 7.5 to 9.5 years in prison.
Vadim Ostanin
Former head of Navalny’s Barnaul headquarters. He headed the headquarters first in Biysk and then in Barnaul. In his post, he talked about local corrupt officials and helped residents of the Altai Territory influence the work of officials.
He was detained in December 2021, and a criminal case was opened against him for participating in an extremist community and a non-profit organization that encroaches on a person. According to the Investigative Committee, the activist continued to work in Navalny’s structures after they were recognized as “extremist.” In March 2023, Ostanin, already in pretrial detention, said that his health had deteriorated due to the conditions of detention. He also reported that he was “promised bad treatment” if he “did not tell everything.”
In July 2023, he was sentenced to 9 years in a general regime penal colony.
Rico Krieger
Former German Red Cross medic Krieger was arrested in Belarus in October 2023. He was charged with six counts: illegal actions with respect to firearms, damaging transport or communication routes, creating or participating in an extremist group, agent activity, mercenarism, and an act of terrorism.
It was alleged that Krieger came to Belarus in October 2023 under the guise of a tourist, but in reality – on assignment from the Ukrainian special services. He allegedly took a homemade explosive device from a hiding place and planted it on the railway tracks on October 5. The damage from the explosion was estimated at $ 516, no one was hurt. Krieger was sentenced to death.
On July 30, 2024, Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Krieger.
Herman Moyzhes
On May 28, lawyer and ideologist of the cycling movement German Moyzhes, a citizen of Germany and Russia, was detained. He was accused of treason. At first, they tried to stop Moyzhes on the embankment of the Kryukov Canal in St. Petersburg, but he was on a bicycle and mistook the maneuvers of the security forces for inadequate behavior of drivers, so he simply dodged and drove away. He was detained near his house on the embankment of the Fontanka River. Moyzhes has already been taken to the Moscow pretrial detention center “Lefortovo”, at the request of the special services, the court arrested him for two months. The case was handled by the central office of the FSB. A search was conducted in the house where the mother of his daughter lives. The search warrant indicated Article 275 – this is treason.
Kevin Leake
Lik, 18, became the first schoolchild in Russia to be convicted of treason. He was sentenced to 4 years in a general regime penal colony in December 2023.
According to the court’s decision, he photographed the “locations” of the military unit in Maykop, after which he sent the photos by email to a “representative of a foreign state.” Lik is a citizen of Germany and Russia, and in the summer of 2022, his mother decided to return to Germany with her son.
Demuri (Dieter) Voronin
Citizen of Russia and Germany. Political scientist, 45 years old. Defendant in the case of journalist Ivan Safronov.
Voronin was listed as a member of the German Association for East European Studies (DGO) and the Russian Association for Public Relations (RASO). From 2015 to 2019, he headed the Russian firm Resost, which, among other things, was engaged in political consulting.
Voronin was detained in February 2021 during a visit to Russia and accused of allegedly receiving information from Safronov, which he then sold to foreign intelligence agencies. In particular, the indictment alleged that Safronov and Voronin passed on classified information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria to German intelligence and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
In March 2023, the Moscow City Court found Voronin guilty of treason and sentenced him to 13 years and 3 months in a maximum security penal colony.
Patrick Schoebel
A German citizen. In January 2024, he was detained in Pulkovo for six gummies, in which experts found marijuana.
During the trial, Shebel said that in his home country such candies are sold legally, he did not know about the ban on such drugs in Russia, and he bought the bears a year ago to use before long flights. He was waiting for the trial to end.
Paul Whelan
American serviceman (former Marine) Paul Whelan was arrested in 2018 when he flew to Russia for the wedding of his former colleague. In June 2020, he was found guilty of spying against Russia and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony. He pleaded not guilty.
On December 28, 2018, he was detained by FSB officers in his hotel room while receiving a USB drive from a Russian intelligence officer. According to the investigation, the recordings contained on it were about employees of one of the units of the FSB’s economic security service. After his detention, Whelan himself stated that he had expected to receive a flash drive with photographs of churches from Sergiev Posad from an acquaintance in his room at the Metropol, where he had vacationed with a Russian officer, his old friend.
Whelan himself linked his criminal prosecution to a debt of about 100 thousand rubles, which his old acquaintance, an FSB operative, allegedly did not want to pay him. We are talking about a major of the special service’s “K” department named Yatsenko, who on December 28, 2018, along with a bottle of whiskey, also gave Mr. Whelan a flash drive containing data from operatives of his unit.
According to Paul Whelan’s lawyers, after his arrest they were told that he could be exchanged for Viktor Bout, who served a term in an American prison from 2012 to 2022 on charges of illegal arms deals and financing terrorism, but the exchange took place without Whelan’s participation. Bout was exchanged for American basketball player Brittney Griner, who was convicted in Russia of drug trafficking.