Moscow, July 23 (EFE) – Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to exchange German citizen Rico Krieger, who has been sentenced to death in Belarus, for Chechen Vadim Krásikov, currently imprisoned in Germany for the murder of a Georgian national. This information comes from the Belarusian opposition in exile.
Pável Latushko, a former Belarusian Minister of Culture now living in Poland, revealed on his YouTube channel that Vadim Krásikov, an agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB), is serving a life sentence in Germany. He emphasized that Putin has attempted to negotiate Krásikov’s exchange for several years, but Berlin has consistently refused.
Latushko added that Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko and Putin have decided to put pressure on Berlin by taking a German citizen hostage and threatening him with the death penalty.
According to Russian sources, Krieger was arrested by Russian security forces in November 2023 and handed over to Belarusian authorities. He allegedly participated in sabotage activities along the Russian-Belarusian border, including the bombing of a tanker train in Russia’s Briansk region, as reported by the portal Belarus in Focus.
In the past, at Putin’s request, Minsk exchanged several Ukrainian saboteurs for Ionafan, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Krieger, a 30-year-old who worked for the German Red Cross, was captured while fighting in Ukraine as part of a volunteer group known as the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment, which is considered extremist in Belarus, a key ally in Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine.
The death sentence by firing squad was issued at the end of June, although the Belarusian Foreign Ministry acknowledged last week that it is in contact with German counterparts. According to German public radio Deutschlandfunk, sources from the ministry headed by Annalena Baerbock stated that German diplomats are working to prevent the death sentence from being carried out in Belarus.
Belarus, ruled for thirty years by the authoritarian Lukashenko, remains the only European country that still practices the death penalty. Earlier this year, the Russian leader proposed a potential swap involving Evan Gershkovich, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, for Krásikov. Krásikov had murdered Zelimjan Jangoshvili, a member of the Chechen guerrilla, in Berlin in August 2019.
Additionally, associates of the late Russian opposition leader Alexéi Navalni accused Putin of obstructing the exchange of their leader for Krásikov just before his death in an Arctic prison.
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