The FSB bicycle assassin Putin wants back in Russia

One year since Evan Gershkovich was detained on a reporting trip in Russia. His best hope of release may be Vadim Krasikov, who is sitting in a German jail. In 2013, a Moscow restaurant owner was gunned down in the Russian capital. Vadim Krasikov is a Russian national with links to the FSB, the Russian security service.

He is the prime suspect in the 2013 murder in Moscow of American journalist Evan Gershkovich. The bald, strongly built man was arrested after dumping a pistol and wig in the River Spree close to the Reichstag. This month marked one year since Mr Gershkovich was detained in Russia. He is accused of espionage charges that are denied by him, his newspaper and the US government.

He isn’t the only American in a Russian jail whose fate could be entwined with Krasikov. Former US Marine Paul Whelan and US-Russian citizen Alsu Kurmasheva are also detained in Russia on charges widely viewed as politically motivated. Even the late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence in Russia, was said to be part of a swap. Vadim Krasikov was wanted over the 2013 Moscow murder.

Two years later, the arrest warrant was withdrawn and his identity vanished. In 2015 he got a passport, and, in 2019, a tax identification number. A German court concluded that this documentation could only be sanctioned by the Kremlin. Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was a Chechen rebel commander between 2000 and 2004.

He seemed likely to be part of a string of Moscow-ordered assassinations of Chechen exiles in Europe and the Middle East. The Kremlin denied orchestrating the Berlin murder, and dismissed the verdict against Krasikov as politically motivated. Vadim Krasikov belonged to the highly secretive Vympel unit of Russia’s secret service, the FSB. The FSB’s official remit is counter-terrorism operations at home, but it has in many ways returned to its original roots as a unit tasked with covert sabotage and assassination abroad.

The BBC approached three members of the government’s foreign affairs committee, all of whom oppose releasing Krasikov. Ulrich Lechte, whose Free Democratic Party is part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, insisted that Germany “must not do Russia this favour. Jürgen Hardt, from the Christian Democrats, said he didn’t see any political support for rumoured prisoner swaps. Even if there was political will in Berlin to release Krasikov, the legal mechanics which could make that happen are murky.

He could be pardoned by the president, or deported to serve the remainder of his sentence. Bill Browder is compiling a list of more than 50 Russian prisoners in Western countries who could be used as bargaining chips to free activists and journalists detained in Russia. Browder hopes the effort could help release British-Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, sentenced to 25 years in jail for treason.