Surprising new claims may shed light on why Vladimir Putin so eagerly freed the murderer Vadim Krasikov from a German prison and brought him back to Russia.
The 58-year-old state assassin was instrumental in the deal that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, falsely accused by Moscow of espionage.
When Krasikov landed, Putin shook the killer’s hand and hugged him. He got off the plane first, ahead of the other returnees. The Russian leader greeted him with the word “zdorovo”, an informal greeting that suggests familiarity.
Putin then publicly promised that Krasikov would receive the highest state award. None of the other exchanged prisoners received such a warm welcome. Russian intelligence agent Krasikov was serving a life sentence handed down by a German court for killing a former Chechen independence fighter in Berlin in 2019.
In August 2019, he shot and killed Zelimkhan Changoshvili in broad daylight in the Kleiner Tiergarten park while he was riding his bicycle. He was believed to be acting on the orders of the Russian government. According to the German newspaper Bild, Putin and Krasikov were already closely connected in the 1990s, when Putin was launching his political career.
How did Sobchak die?
Krasikov may know some of Putin’s worst secrets. Military analyst Julian Röpcke stated: “Western intelligence believes that the Russian dictator feared that Krasikov might leak important information if he remained in a German prison for a long time. Out of revenge against the Russian regime for not releasing him.”
It is suspected that Krasikov “played a key role in Putin’s rise in the 1990s” and even possibly in the suspicious death of the Russian president’s main political mentor – Anatoly Sobchak, of the former mayor of St. Petersburg in 2000. “It was something for something. Sobchak is said to have protected Putin from accusations of corruption. Putin helped his mentor when he was accused of bribery,” the report said.
Krasikov allegedly worked for Sobchak and his then deputy Putin “and acted against their political opponents”. Yet in February 2000, a few weeks after Putin became president, Sobchak died suddenly. Officially it was a heart attack, but murder was suspected. “Did Krasikov have anything to do with the alleged murder of Putin’s political mentor? And there is also a trail to Putin himself?” Röpcke asks.
“This is suspected by Western intelligence, which believes that this is why Putin fought so hard for Krasikov’s release.” The report states: “The Russian dictator places great emphasis on what is known about his past. If the intelligence’s suspicions are correct that he was involved in the assassination of his political mentor, it would call into question Putin’s favorite trait – the loyalty he is said to value so highly.”
The Russian Telegram channel PolitYumor wrote: “Putin rushed to the airport to hug the bomber. Putin does not care about those who have experienced grief. Putin only cares about those who kill on his orders. They are killing in Germany, in Ukraine, in Russia itself.”
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The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office called the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation undesirable, the Interfax agency announced today. This decision, which effectively means banning the foundation’s activities in Russia, is rather symbolic, since the foundation itself suspended its activities in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops in February 2022 and is not present in the country, AFP noted.
“The declared goals include the spread of democracy, the support of European unity and talented youth. They spread materials discrediting the leadership of Russia and its domestic and foreign policy, the work of judicial bodies and the judicial system.” prosecutor’s office spokesman Andrej Ivanov told Interfax. According to him, the foundation “openly provoked” with its information policy and tried to complicate relations between Russia and the West, isolate Russia on the international stage and intensify the military confrontation on the Ukrainian battlefield.
These are indicative estimates of Russia’s combat losses to date according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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