Exchanged prisoner Vadim Krasikov is close to Putin, likely his former bodyguard - WSJ
Vadim Krasikov (Russian media)
Killer Vadim Krasikov, released in a prisoner exchange between the West and Russia, is close to President Vladimir Putin. Krasikov could have been Putin's bodyguard in the 1990s, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Krasikov was serving a life sentence in Germany. Russian officials were trying to return him to Russia for two years. Western intelligence believed that Putin's insistence on Krasikov's return was rooted in their close ties.
Presumably, the Russian leader and the killer had known each other since Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in 1994, and Krasikov was his bodyguard.
According to the brother of Krasikov's second wife, he and Putin were so close that they used to go to the shooting field together. Krasikov told the family that Putin was supposedly a good shooter.
Krasikov had a luxurious lifestyle, the article says. His wife boasted that her husband often changed cars, Porsche and BMW, and that she did not have time to get used to them. The WSJ notes that the Russian agent earned $10,000 a month and received “business trip” bonuses.
Western media earlier reported that Krasikov was a member of the FSB group that worked with the fugitive president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. The special services believe that he could have been a member of a group of snipers who shot at the participants of the Revolution of Dignity (protests in Kyiv in 2014 before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war).
Russian president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that Vadim Krasikov is an FSB officer and served in Alpha together with some of Putin's current security officers.
Major exchange between Russia and the West
Yesterday, August 1, a major prisoner exchange took place between the United States, Germany, other Western countries and Russia. Russia released 16 people, including journalists, politicians, and Kremlin critics.
Western nations extradited ten people to Russia, including the killer Vadim Krasikov. He was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for the murder of former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.
Reuters says that the negotiations between the West and Russia on the exchange lasted more than two years. Moscow has been insisting on Krasikov's release all along.
