- Kevin Lick, freed from Russia, wants to repeat his high school graduation.
The 19-year-old German-Russian Kevin Lick, who was recently released from Russian detention, claims he only found out about the prisoner exchange during his journey to the airport. "Nothing was said," he reported in Bonn, speaking both German and Russian. Before the exchange, all participants were taken to a prison in Moscow, he said. He is one of five men with German citizenship who were released as part of a large prisoner exchange between the West and Moscow.
Lick said he ended up in a Russian labor camp at the age of 17. He was held in solitary confinement and accused of spying, he reported. The tall, thin young man, who still wore the black clothing of the labor camp even the day after his arrival in Germany, expressed his gratitude to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his release during their meeting at Cologne/Bonn Airport. His mother is still in Russia, and he hopes to see her soon.
"I have plans, of course," Lick said. "I didn't have the chance to finish school, and I want to make sure I get my Abitur." The 19-year-old, who has short hair and weighs 70 kilograms, was in the tenth grade when he was arrested. "I have a very strong motivation to finish school," he said. He grew up in Montabaur and moved to Russia at the age of 12. He also plans to pursue higher education.
Lick attended the press conference of the other released Russian opposition figures, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, and Andrei Pivovarov, at the Deutsche Welle building in Bonn. He said he is also being accommodated in a hospital like them.
The European Union played a role in facilitating the large prisoner exchange between the West and Moscow, leading to Kevin Lick's release. Lick expressed his gratitude to the German government, a member state of the European Union, for securing his freedom.
