Russia prisoner swap: Biden, Harris greet released citizens

These live updates will conclude now. However, for more on the latest on the prisoner swap this Friday evening, as three of the released Russian dissidents brief reporters from DW's Bonn HQ, please go here.

France welcomed the prisoner swap betweenRussia and the West and urged Moscow to let go of Laurent Vinatier and other people "arbitrarily" detained in the country.

"France shares the sentiment of the families and allied governments following the release of several political prisoners held in Russia," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Our thoughts are with those who remain arbitrarily detained in Russia, including our compatriot Laurent Vinatier. France calls for their immediate release," it said.

The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov, who was released from a German prison in exchange for prisoners held in Russia, was an FSB operative.

The FSB is Russia's federal security service and the successor to the KGB, the former Soviet secret police and intelligence agency.

"Krasikov is an FSB employee," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, adding that he served in the agency's elite and secretive "Alpha" unit.

Peskov also said that Krasikov "served with some of the people working in the president's security detail."

Securing Krasikov's release, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for murdering a Chechen military commander in a Berlin park in 2019, was high on Russia's list of demands for a prisoner swap between Russia and the US.

Moscow, in fact, approached the US in 2022 with the offer to release Americans in Moscow prisons if Germany gave up Krasikov. But, US officials did not think the offer was serious because Krasikov was not a US prisoner.

Germany's willingness to release Vadim Krasikov and Turkey's role as a mediator were key in enabling the historic prisoner swap between Russia and the West this week, according to a German counter-extremism expert.

"[Krasikov] was the most high-profile and the most heinous case," said Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the non-profit Counter Extremism Project, referring to the former Russian security service (FSB) officer who was convicted of the murder of an ethnic Chechen former Georgian officer in Berlin in 2019. "A German court found him to be a murderer and a murderer on behalf of the Russian government."

For Schindler, the Kremlin was most determined to secure Krasikov's release for two reasons: "To make sure that he is rewarded for being an assassin, but also to make sure there will be future assassins willing to [do the same]."

Because, in Schindler's opinion, the exchange could now set a precedent.

"The cycle will continue. Russia is not going to stop sending people into the West. And the sad truth is if Russian spies and assassins are caught in the West, we will have to expect [further] Western citizens to be arrested and arbitrarily charged in Russia. We are in hybrid warfare."

The historic prisoner swap, which saw a total of 26 individuals released, has been referred to as the biggest such exchange since the end of the Cold War. But Schindler cautioned against comparisons with deals struck between the United States and the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century, saying the goalposts had fundamentally moved.

"Here, we have spies and murderers on the one side and, on the other, opposition politicians and Western citizens who've been caught up and charged for ludicrous charges, or sentenced to ludicrous sentences for small infractions. There is no equivalence."

Therefore, new approaches involving new partners are required. And Schindler said that Turkey, having also been involved in prisoner-of-war exchanges between the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces during the ongoing war, played a key mediating role.

"Turkey has the advantage of being a NATO member but not an EU member," he said. "So it is perfectly positioned between both worlds to be able to be a managing facilitator in these very tricky situations."

Russia wants to free more prisoners in the US following the historic prisoner swap between Russia and the West, said Russia's ambassador to the US.

Anatoly Antonov wrote on a Telegram post late Thursday that: "There are still dozens of Russians in US prisons who are looking hopefully to their fatherland and waiting for their hour of release."

Antonov said those held in US prisons were there because of an international "hunt" for Russians by the US Secret Service.

"We will make maximum efforts to continue the liberation and alleviate the plight of all compatriots who are in the clutches of local justice," he added.

"There is no way that you're going to get wrongfully detained individuals out of Russia without a negotiation. That doesn't mean that there's some rapprochement in our relationship, or we're heading into an era of US-Russia relations where we're going to start negotiating over things like Ukraine," John Kirby, the White House National Security Communications Advisor, said in an interview with DW's Washington bureau chief, Ines Pohl.

"We're still going to hold [Russian President Vladimir] Putin accountable for his aggression in Ukraine."

Kirby said that Putin "has been doing this for years, detaining people wrongfully on trumped up charges. Whether or not there's negotiations at play, this is what he does."

He went on to express his gratitude to Germany for agreeing to release convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov as part of the deal.

"This is a serious criminal. ... Of course, we understand that not everybody would be happy about this. And that's why, again, we applaud the leadership, the courage that it took for Chancellor Scholz to make this decision," the White House advisor told DW.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has expressed her "relief" at the release of 15 prisoners from Russian and Belarusian custody, including four German citizens.

But she admitted that the release of Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov had presented Germany with a "highly sensitive dilemma."

"Today is a day of relief," she told Bavarian public broadcaster Bayrischer Rundfunk, insisting that "nobody in the federal government took the decision lightly" and admitting that the move will "rightly lead to much, much discussion."

Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the release of Evan Gershkovic, Paul Whelan and other political prisoners from Russian incarceration, but said the historic prisoner swap had a "bitter aftertaste."

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has instrumentalized laws and statutes and used political prisoners as bargaining chips to get what he wants," said deputy general secretary of Amnesty International Germany, Christian Mihr.

"A murderer and other criminals who were sentenced in fair trials have now walked free in exchange for people who had only ever made use of their right to freedom of speech. The prisoner swap is therefore a step in the direction of a culture of impunity," he added.

"The Russian government could now feel encouraged to make further political arrests and commit further human rights abuses without fear of consequences."

Key to the release of US journalist Evan Gershkovich was the release from German detention of Vadim Krasikov, the Russian who was convicted in 2021 of the murder of a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity in Berlin's "Kleiner Tiergarten" park in 2019.

The so-called "Tiergarten murderer" was sentenced to life imprisonment but has now been released after just five years, which has raised questions in Germany.

"How can a murderer be freed?" asked German broadsheet newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The answer: German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann personally instructed the country's top judge, Public Prosecutor General Jens Rommel, to suspend Krasikov's sentence in order to enable the prisoner swap.

"A particularly bitter concession for which I take responsibility," said Buschmann.

The chairman of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, Michael Roth, wrote on social media: "Sometimes, for humanitarian reasons, you have to do a deal with the devil."

Norbert Röttgen, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), said he supported the prisoner swap which he nevertheless described as a difficult balance.

He told Deutschlandfunk radio that Germany had knowingly accepted a "grave setback" but that this was "justified by the humanitarian victory of freeing 16 people from torture."

He added: "The German state, the rule of law and order, has made a huge concession for a greater good, for humanity and for the health and freedom of 16 people. It's a give and take."

Paul Whelan's family said it was "grateful to the United States government for making Paul’s freedom a reality," in a statement following his release.

They said the former marine lost his home and his job while "wrongfully imprisoned in Russia."

"We are unsure how someone overcomes these losses and rejoins society after being a hostage," they said.

"We are grateful for everyone's efforts to help Paul while he was away. We hope you will continue to help him by providing Paul the space and privacy he needs as he rebuilds his life. It is Paul's story to tell and he will tell it when he is able."

Whelan was initially detained in 2018 on espionage charges and spent five years in pre-trial detention before being moved to a labor colony.

Released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has spoken about the other political prisoners he was detained alongside in Russia and expressed his desire that people think and talk about them, too.

"It was great to get on that bus today and see not just Americans and Germans but Russian political prisoners," he told The Guardian and other media on the tarmac in Maryland.

"But I've just spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where everybody was a political prisoner. Nobody knows them publicly. They have various political beliefs, not all connected with [Alexei] Navalny supporters, everyone knows about them, so it would be good to see us talk about them and potentially do something about them in the next weeks and months, as well."

Asked how he was doing himself, Gershkovich responded: "I'm alright, it was a good flight."

US Vice President and presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris praised outgoing President Joe Biden in her remarks to the media.

"This is an extraordinary day and I'm very thankful for our President for what he has done his entire career but in particular in relation to these families and these individuals, and what he has been able to do to bring allies together on many issues but particularly this one," she said, stood alongside Biden.

"This is an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and strengthening alliances. This is an incredible day and you can see it in the families and in their eyes."

There were jubilant scenes as Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovic and Alsu Kurmasheva disembarked at Andrews Air Base, Maryland, and were reunited with their families.

Gershkovic embraced his mother, Ella Milman, and Whelan was greeted by his sister, Elizabeth.

In a touching moment, President Joe Biden gave Whelan the US flag pin off his own lapel, while Gershkovic was reunited with his Wall Street Journal colleagues including editor-in-chief Emma Tucker.

The jet carrying three US citizens released from Russia as a part of a large-scale prisoner swap touched down Friday outside Washington.

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and relatives of the former prisoners waited to greet them.

"It comes down to trust," Biden told reporters. "Other leaders trust you and you trust them and that's how this got done."

The Americans landed nearly 12 hours after leaving Turkey, where they were among 24 exchanged in the largest post-Soviet prisoner swap.

They were shown smiling on board the jet in a photo released by the White House.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday night said he met some of the Russians and Westerners released from Russia as part of a prisoner swap earlier Thursday.

Scholz said he spoke at length with the people who had arrived in Germany in what he called a "very moving" encounter.

"Many did not expect this to happen now and are still very full of the feelings associated with suddenly being able to be free after all," he told reporters. "Many had feared for their health and even their lives."

Germany played a key role in the prisoner swap, and a total of 12 former detainees landed in Germany. Among the five with German citizenship was Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death in Belarus on espionage charges before a reprieve this week.

Scholz defended the decision to free Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov, who assassinated a former Chechen rebel commander in a Berlin park and was a key figure sought by the Russians as part of the deal.

"We are a society that is characterized by... the idea of individual freedom and by democracy," Scholz said. "And the fact that those who have to fear for their lives because they have stood up for democracy and freedom can also count on the protection of others is part of our self-image as a democratic ... society."