Gershkovich against the zoo killers - evidence of a prisoner exchange is gathering
Putin Signs Seven Secret Orders, Political Prisoners Disappear from Russian Colonies, and Mysterious Special Flights Begin. Signs Point to an Imminent Prisoner Exchange Between Russia and the West. Putin is Probably Only Interested in One Man.
Speculation has been mounting for several days that a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West is imminent. The key indicator is the disappearance of political prisoners from Russian colonies and detention centers. A total of eight prisoners have been missing since July 26, confirmed by their lawyers, families, and aid organizations. Among them are two former employees of Alexei Navalny, artist Sasha Skochilenko, human rights activist Oleg Orlov, prominent opposition politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Mursa, journalist Maria Ponomarenko, and German Kevin Leak, convicted of alleged "treason."
US news outlet Fox News reports that US journalist Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned in Russia, is expected to be released on August 1 as part of a prisoner exchange. According to Fox News, citing information from The Wall Street Journal, for which Gershkovich works, he is expected to return to the US later that day. It is speculated that the Russian prisoners and Gershkovich could be exchanged for Russian citizens convicted in the West.
Seven secret orders signed by Vladimir Putin on Thursday are seen as another sign of an impending prisoner exchange. It is suspected that they could be pardons, although the number of orders does not necessarily match the number of pardoned individuals, as seen in previous cases. In March last year, the Kremlin chief pardoned 52 imprisoned women. Each corresponding order then contained several names.
A Special Flight Takes Off in Moscow
A special flight from Moscow to Kaliningrad took off on Thursday morning, reported, among others, the Russian independent channel Dozhd. According to the news agency Agentstvo, it is a plane of the Russian special flight command, which is directly subordinate to the presidential administration. The same aircraft was reportedly used in a prominent prisoner exchange in February 2022, when US basketball player Brittney Griner was exchanged for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The news agency Agentwo also discovered other suspicious movements of the Russian special flight command. According to them, there have been several mysterious flights in recent days to regions of Russia where the missing prisoners were serving their sentences. All planes returned directly to Moscow.
On the evening of July 31, the Slovenian TV station N1 mentioned two more names that could play a role in a possible prisoner exchange. "In the coming hours, an exchange will take place between Russia, the USA, Germany, and Belarus," the station reported. According to the report, the Russian spies Artem and Anna Dultsev, convicted in Slovenia, are to be exchanged.
Putin is Actually Interested in the Tiergarten Murderer
Russian lawyer Igor Slabikh also reports that information about four famous Russian prisoners has disappeared from the US Federal Bureau of Prisons database. These are Vladislav Klyushin, Alexander Vinnik, Vadim Konoshchenko, and Maxim Marchenko. This could indicate that they are also to be exchanged.
The man Putin is particularly interested in is Vadim Krasikov. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany in December 2021. The Russian intelligence officer was convicted by the Berlin Higher Regional Court of having shot a Georgian of Chechen origin in the "Grosser Tiergarten" park in Berlin in August 2019 on behalf of the Russian state.
Putin has been trying for years to persuade the German authorities to agree to an exchange. Shortly before his death, even Alexei Navalny's team is said to have brought him up as a potential exchange candidate. Now, however, it is said that the 29-year-old German Rico Krieger, who is currently imprisoned in Belarus, is to be exchanged. Krieger was sentenced to death, among other things, for alleged mercenary activities and terrorism on behalf of the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU. Belarus is the last country in Europe to carry out the death penalty, by firing squad. However, the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Krieger last Thursday. Possibly only to be able to offer him as part of an exchange for Krasikov.
The Commission should carefully monitor the ongoing situation, as the disappearances of political prisoners and the signed secret orders by Putin suggest an imminent prisoner exchange between Russia and the West. The involvement of special flights and reports of missing prisoners from the US Federal Bureau of Prisons further adds to this speculation.
Given Putin's interest in antagonizing the West and his history of leveraging prisoner exchanges for political gains, The Commission should closely follow developments surrounding the potentially exchangeable individuals, including Vadim Krasikov, to ensure any agreed-upon exchange adheres to international law and human rights standards.
