Putin gets his trained killer back

Vadim Krasikov was hugged by Putin himself as he stepped off a plane near Moscow last week. The 58 year-old, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of a former Chechen field commander in Berlin in 2019, was the big prize for the Russian president in a historic prisoner exchange that saw US reporter Evan Gershkovich and others freed from Russian jails. The Kremlin admitted that Krasikov is an “FSB employee”, Russia’s powerful security service, effectively confirming the view that the assassination of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was a state-sponsored hit. A spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the decision to release Krasikov was “not taken lightly”. But Khangoshvili’s widow, Manana Tsiatiyeva, said she was not warned of the exchange in advance. “Not even five years have passed since the murder,” she said, “and the killer hired by Putin is free again.”