Russia hails return of spies but says swap won’t end fight over Ukraine

The site of a Russian missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Kremlin says this week's prisoner exchange won't open the way for peace talks to end the conflict. Photo / Getty Images

As journalist Evan Gershkovich and other Americans released in a historic prisoner exchange arrived in Texas for medical treatment, and freed members of the Russian opposition reunited joyfully in Cologne, Germany, the Kremlin voiced triumph at bringing home elite spies and an operative convicted of murder.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also swiftly squashed any suggestion the swap – the most complex since the Cold War – marked any thawing of relations that could open the way for peace talks in the war against Ukraine. His remarks suggested releasing prisoners was a low common denominator of mutual interests.

“If we are talking about Ukraine and more complex international problems, this is a completely different matter,” Peskov said when asked by the Washington Post if the exchange was a sign Russia would be ready to compromise and end the invasion of its neighbour.

“The principles there are completely different. They are the principles of the national interests of our country, the national security interests, and the work there is carried out in a different mode and according to different principles,” he said. Peskov said the exchange was negotiated by the CIA and Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.

Evan Gershkovich's mother Ella Milman welcomes her son as he has returned to the US as part of a successful prisoner exchange. Photo / Getty Images

Tatyana Stanovaya, a Russia analyst and founder of R. Politik political consultancy, now based in France, said no one should expect a breakthrough in US-Russia relations after the exchange, in which Russia released 16 prisoners, including some of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures. In return, Western nations released eight prisoners plus two children whose parents were captured Russian spies.

“There is no indication that the current exchange will facilitate peace talks concerning Ukraine,” Stanovaya said. “Instead, it reflects the current situation, where each side learns to live with mutual intransigence.”

At Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced Vadim Krasikov, a state assassin who was freed from prison in Germany, where he was sentenced to life for killing a former Chechen rebel in broad daylight in a park in Berlin.

In contrast, in the US homecoming at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Gershkovich was embraced by US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris before hugging his mother and lifting her into the air.

The Americans – Gershkovich, ex-Marine Paul Whelan and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva – were to be taken to the Brooke Army Medical Centre at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, the Wall Street Journal reported.

US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris welcome Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva. Photo / Getty Images

The images of the dual reunions, on airfields 7801km apart, conveyed two distinct worlds that connected for a brief moment in an exchange that showcased on the one hand Western concern not only for its own jailed citizens but also for persecuted Russian dissidents, and on the other Russia’s celebration of covert operatives, criminals and a convicted assassin.

Peskov confirmed openly for the first time that Krasikov had been a member of the elite Alpha unit of the FSB even though Moscow had denied any involvement in Krasikov’s killing of the Chechen commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in 2019. Peskov also said a member of Russian military intelligence was returned.

Earlier, investigative group Bellingcat, which first revealed Krasikov’s identity, had reported he was part of Alpha’s sister agency Vympel, another elite special unit of the FSB.

Peskov also said Krasikov had served in the Alpha group with members of Putin’s security detail and that the old comrades met at the airport after the presidential welcome.

Asked about Putin’s hug for Krasikov, Peskov said the President greeted Krasikov “informally” because of Krasikov’s previous role as an Alpha operative. Putin, a former KGB agent, seemed singularly focused on winning Krasikov’s release.

“It is very important,” Peskov said, explaining Putin’s decision to personally greet the returning prisoners, doing so along with his top security chiefs and Defence Minister Andrei Belousov. “He chose to honour those who serve their country and those who after difficult trials got a chance to return to their homeland.”

At the airport, Putin highlighted some of the operatives’ “military” service to the Russian state, promising medals and indicating he would ensure they were well looked after.

“Especially to those who have military service, I want to thank you for your loyalty to your oath,” Putin said in a hall at the airport after presenting flowers to deep-cover spy Anna Dultseva. She returned home with her husband, Artyom Dultsev, also a spy, and their two children.

“You will all receive state awards,” Putin said. “We will see each other again. We will talk about your future. But for now I just want to congratulate you on your return. Thank you.”

Before the passengers disembarked, Putin was shown on state television at the bottom of the aircraft stairs, checking with reception staff that all was in order.

Critics of the Russian leader immediately seized on his warm welcome. Krasikov is “an FSB killer from one of the FSB’s most secretive and lethal units”, Christo Grozev, of Bellingcat, who was a close associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, posted today on X.

Bellingcat revealed Krasikov’s true identity after he was arrested carrying a passport with a fake name. Grozev helped formulate the initial idea of an exchange for Krasikov, originally designed to secure Navalny’s release. Instead, Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February in mysterious circumstances before the deal could be sealed.

Grozev, Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya, and other members of Navalny’s team have accused Putin of ordering him killed. The Kremlin has denied any role in his death.

The release of Russian activists and dissidents, and the important role that close Navalny supporters Maria Pevchikh and Grozev played in compiling lists of prisoners to be freed, seemed to give a burst of energy to the exiled opposition, which has been exhausted by a brutal Kremlin crackdown and crushed by the loss of its leader.

“I think no one will argue that after Alexei’s murder, [Ilya] Yashin and [Vladimir] Kara-Murza were the most important political figures in Putin’s captivity. He gave them up, too – [Navalny allies] pushed through,” said Ian Matveev, a former employee of Navalny’s social media team.

Konstantin Sonin, economist and Russia analyst at the University of Chicago, wrote that even after analysing Putin’s actions for 20 years “he still finds ways to dumbfound me”.

“Contract killers returning to the USSR in Soviet times were greeted warmly – but secretly,” Sonin posted on X. “Putin seems no longer to care about any audience save for the FSB/spy community.”

Russia’s hawkish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova drove home the contrast between Russia and the West, saying it illustrated Russia’s composure.

“What many people called ‘exchange,’ I would call a battle of composure,” Zakharova posted on the Telegram messaging platform today. “The self-possession of the prisoners, the self-possession of the political authorities, the self-possession of the intelligence services. By all accounts we are the best.” She said it was proof that Russia “will not abandon our own”.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of Russia’s security council, appeared to hint the released Russian prisoners, whom he called “traitors”, would not necessarily be able to live free, safe, normal lives. Posting on Telegram, Medvedev wrote: “Let the traitors now frantically pick up new names and actively disguise themselves under the witness protection programme.”

He continued: “I would like, of course, for Russia’s traitors to rot in a penitentiary or die in prison, as has often happened. But it is more useful to get out our own people, who worked for the country, for the Fatherland, for all of us.”

In a major prisoner exchange in 2010, the United States sent home 10 undercover Russian spies, including Anna Chapman a New York model, born Anna Kushchenko, and several couples with children, as well as others. Russia released Sergei Skripal, a military intelligence officer who leaked secrets to Britain’s MI6, and others. But in 2018 Russia tried to kill Skripal, highlighting the continuing danger for Russians seen as foes by Putin’s regime no matter where they live.

Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, nearly died when they were poisoned in Salisbury, England, by Russian military agents using the same chemical nerve agent later used in an attack on Navalny. Their whereabouts are now unknown.

Russian state television propagandist Andrei Medvedev, who has a Telegram channel, was blunter about the potential Russia threat to the released Russians, including opposition figures Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributing columnist who has been poisoned twice, and Yashin. They will still be in a kind of prison, the television commentator said.

“If Yashin or Kara-Murza think that they will say and do what they think is right, they are mistaken,” he said. “Skripal’s fate should serve as a frightening and compelling reminder that a swap is not a way to freedom. It is simply a move into a different system of control.”

The last exchange of such complexity occurred in 1985, when the Soviet Union exchanged 25 Western spies for four Warsaw Pact agents at the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam. But the mood at that time was different: A reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had just come to power, signalling his readiness for more open relations, and paving the way for a meeting with US President Ronald Reagan in Geneva later that year.

The following year, the Soviet Union released Soviet Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky and three others in return for five Warsaw Pact spies, setting the stage for an arms control summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, later that year. Landmark arms control deals followed.

But there are no signs now of a thaw in US-Russia relations, with the prisoner exchange seen by the Kremlin as a pragmatic deal in Russia’s short-term interests.

As President, Putin has taken an increasingly harsh anti-Western position, challenging global norms, invading neighbouring countries, sending assassins to kill foes abroad, interfering in foreign elections, sowing disinformation, and suspending Russian co-operation with the last surviving arms control deal, New Start, last year.

The family of Khangoshvili, the former Chechen rebel commander murdered by Krasikov in Berlin, expressed anguish that the Russian killer had been freed. They had no official warning, they said, and learned the news through the media.

“This was devastating news for us, the relatives,” the family said in a statement. “On the one hand, we are happy that someone’s life was saved. At the same time, we are very disappointed that there seems to be no law in the world, even in countries where the law is the highest authority.”