The online newspaper The Insider publishes a list of what, according to its information, They would be the people released in the prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on the one hand and the United States and other Western countries on the otherAccording to the newspaper, Moscow has released the Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich; Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva; veteran human rights activist and co-director of the NGO Memorial Oleg Orlov; artist Aleksandra Skochilenko, imprisoned for denouncing the war in Ukraine by placing anti-invasion messages in place of price tags on some products in a supermarket; American citizen Paul Whelansentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges that he denied and that Washington called unfounded; German citizen RK, sentenced to death in Belarus and then pardoned by dictator Lukashenko; Russian opposition activists Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Andrei Pivovarov, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva; and Kevin Lik, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schobel and Herman Moyzhes. Some of them have German citizenship. Eight Russian citizens may have been released, according to The Insider. They include Vadim Krasikov, an alleged former Russian intelligence agent sentenced to life in prison in Germany on charges of killing a former Chechen separatist commander in Berlin; Artyom Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, recently convicted in Slovenia on espionage charges; Roman Seleznev, an alleged hacker sentenced to 27 years in prison in the USA.
For two days the Russian press, as well as the Western one, have been reporting on the preparations for the largest exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West since the Cold War. According to Ria Novosti, a special An-148 aircraft, used in the exchange of Russian arms dealer Viktor But for American basketball player Brittney Griner in December 2022 and in the exchange of pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko for former Marine Trevor Reed in April of the same year, landed in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad today and took off shortly thereafter for an unknown destination. According to Slovenian radio station N1, the justice system in the Balkan country has expelled two alleged Russian spies so that they could take part in the exchange. They are Artem Viktorovic Dulcev and Ana Valerevna Dulceva, who pleaded guilty to charges of espionage and forgery of documents, as they used fake Argentine passports with the names Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Munos.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin himself admitted, Moscow is very interested in freeing Russian agent Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in December 2021 for the murder of a Georgian-Chechen opposition leader in Berlin in 2019. To this end, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday pardoned German citizen Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death for terrorism in June.