On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (60) and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov (72) spoke to each other for the first time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
SUBJECT OF PHONE: A US offer to Russia to secure the release of US basketball player Brittney Griner, 31, and ex-US Marine Paul Whelan, 52, both imprisoned in Russia.
The US government had already announced on Wednesday that it had made a corresponding offer to Russia – and had put it on the table weeks ago. Blinken also announced that he would like to speak to Lavrov in this regard.
But he hesitated – he would comply with the request for a conversation with the United States “if time permits,” Lavrov said on Thursday, according to the Russian news agency Tass. He currently has a busy schedule with international contacts, said the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Finally, on Friday morning (local time), time allowed: the two foreign ministers called each other. It was an “open and direct conversation”, said Blinken afterwards.
Details of the offer that the US made to Russia are not officially known. Only that the decision on the offer was not easy, as the communications director of the National Security Council, John Kirby, emphasized.
BUT: The US TV station CNN had reported on Wednesday that Putin’s notorious “Dealer of Death”, the Russian arms dealer Viktor But (55), could be part of the offer from Washington. But is currently serving a 25-year sentence in the US for conspiring to murder Americans, acquiring and exporting anti-aircraft missiles and providing material support to a terrorist organization in 2012.
BRISANT: On Friday evening, CNN reported what could be part of the Russian demand for the release of the two Americans. According to CNN, Russian government officials asked that Putin’s zoo killer Vadim Krasikov (55) be part of the exchange.
Vadim Krasikov (55) was sentenced to life imprisonment in December last year. The judges were certain: He is responsible for the cowardly contract killing of Tornike K. (40), a Georgian of Chechen descent, in the middle of Berlin! Tornike K. was executed with three shots on August 23, 2019 in the Kleiner Tiergarten.
Vadim Krasikov (55) was sentenced to life imprisonment in December last year for the contract killing in Berlin’s Tiergarten – according to CNN the Russian government now wants him to be part of a prisoner swap
The fatal shots were fired in Berlin’s Tiergarten on August 23, 2019
According to CNN, the Russians informed the US earlier this month via an informal back channel from the FSB that they wanted Krasikov to be released along with Bout. From the American point of view, this request was seen as problematic for a number of reasons, including because Krasikov is in German custody.
However, because the request was only communicated through the informal channel, the US government has not yet considered it a legitimate counter-proposal to its own offer.
Nevertheless, although there had been initial quiet inquiries from the Americans in Germany, according to CNN, they had not reached a higher level of government. And including Krasikov in the deal was not seriously considered.
As early as April, the United States and Russia surprisingly exchanged prisoners in the middle of the Ukraine war: At the airport in the Turkish capital Ankara, the Russian Konstantin Yaroshenko was exchanged for the American Trevor Reed. In view of the hardened fronts between Washington and Moscow, the development was particularly unexpected at the time.