Russian authorities have demanded that a former colonel from Moscow's domestic spy agency who was previously convicted of murder in Germany last year be added to the U.S.'s proposed prisoner swap with Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
The deal between the U.S. and Moscow aims to swap a notorious arms dealer for the Women's Basketball Association athlete. The Russians communicated the request earlier this month through an informal backchannel that was used by the spy agency, known as the FSB.
Russia-U.S. Prisoner Swap
They said that they wanted Vadim Krasikov released in addition to Viktor Bout, with the first being convicted in December of murdering a former Chechen fighter, Zelimkhan "Tornike" Khanghoshvili, in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
However, the request is seen as problematic for several reasons, including that Krasikov remains in German and not American custody. This means that because the request was not communicated formally, the U.S. government did not view it as a legitimate counter to its offer which was first released on Wednesday, as per CNN.
But in an attempt to underscore how determined the Biden administration has been in trying to get Griner and Whelan back to their home country, U.S. officials did make quiet inquiries to the Germans about whether or not they might be willing to include Krasikov in the prisoner swap.
The conversations between American and German officials were never elevated to the top levels of the German government. Furthermore, including Krasikov in the potential trade has not been seriously considered, said a German source.
According to Yahoo News, on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed a swap with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The request comes as Whelan was convicted on charges pertaining to alleged espionage in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. On the other hand, Griner is currently on trial in Russia for drug possession and she, along with Whelan, are considered to be wrongfully detained, said the State Department.
Who is Viktor Bout?
The prisoner that the Russians want, Bout, is a 55-year-old male Russian who was the world's most notorious arms dealer before being convicted in 2011. He was in his mid-20s when the Soviet Union fractured in 1991, leaving vast quantities of Soviet military hardware scattered across 15 newly-minted countries.
The majority of which were ill-equipped to pay their troops or keep track of the weapons they had just inherited. This meant that almost anything was available for a price. Bout was trained by the Soviet military as a linguist and began acquiring Soviet military transport plans and loaded them up with weapons.
The U.S. said that he sold them all over the world with various reports linking him to wars in Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and many others. He was known to be entrepreneurial and not ideological, selling to governments that were fighting rebels, and to rebels who were fighting governments.
When documenting Bout's work, it was difficult for officials to separate fact from fiction but many reports said that he even sold arms to both sides in the same conflict, NPR reported.
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