When the assassin Vadim Krasikov was asked for a statement in prison by the immigration authorities in the small Bavarian city of Straubing, he lied. Even five years after his bloody deed in a Berlin park, the Russian contract killer claimed he was just a sports teacher and had a degree in civil engineering. He was innocent, he added, and merely a "victim of political games.”

On this day in February, Krasikov – who had been sentenced to life in prison – also said that he would naturally have no objections to being deported to Russia. His partner and two children lived in Moscow, and he also had a house further south, in Bryansk.

A few months later, in April, the immigration authorities ordered his deportation to Russia and barred him from entering Germany for 20 years. Krasikov posed a threat to "the security of the Federal Republic of Germany,” the agency said in its order.

A Whiff of the Cold War

This order was the formal basis for the freeing of a state-sponsored terrorist – and for the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War, back when both sides handed over spies on Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge.

But this time it wasn’t just killers and agents from the rival intelligence services who were being exchanged. It was about the life and freedom of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a gravely ill Russian opposition activist, as well as other dissidents. About German citizens who had been sentenced to draconian prison terms in Russia on spurious grounds. And of course about Evan Gershkovich, the unjustly imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter. Also part of the deal was Rico Krieger, a German who had been sentenced to death in Belarus on terrorism and other charges but had recently been pardoned.

In total, 16 prisoners held by the regimes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko were released last Thursday afternoon. This historic exchange took place at an airport in Ankara, the Turkish capital. On the German side, in addition to medical staff, there were representatives of the German federal intelligence service BND and the elite police unit GSG 9.

Chancellor Scholz Welcomes the Liberated Prisoners

On the other side, a Russian government plane was waiting for 10 people. These included Vadim Krasikov; two Russian spies convicted in Slovenia, along with their children; several criminals and agents convicted in the United States; and several other spies from Moscow who had been arrested in Europe. The Germans, who had been released from prison in Russia, traveled directly from Ankara to Cologne-Bonn Airport. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was waiting for the liberated prisoners in person.

The release of the 16 men and women represents a success for the West, especially for the negotiators of U.S. President Joe Biden. The return of Gershkovich, a well-known journalist, could help the Democrats in the polls ahead of the upcoming presidential election in November.

But Germany’s government can be satisfied, too, as it likely saved five Germans from having to spend decades in Russian penal colonies. The deal will also probably save the lives of important members of the Russian opposition.

Nevertheless, the success has an unpleasant aftertaste. The fact that Germany’s government was willing to exchange the state terrorist and murderer Krasikov represents a triumph for Putin. Krasikov served less than five years of his sentence behind bars. And given the brutality of his crime, this could motivate Moscow to commit more contract killings in Europe.

How did this historic step come about? The secret negotiations spanned months. The spectacular prisoner exchange can now be recounted in detail thanks to interviews with multiple individuals familiar with the events, including high-ranking officials in Germany and the United States, as well as confidential files that DER SPIEGEL was able to review.

Execution in Broad Daylight

The assassination that Krasikov carried out on August 23, 2019, shocked Germany. In broad daylight, he approached Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen from an exile community in Georgia, on a mountain bike in the Kleiner Tiergarten, a small park in Berlin. He knocked the man down with the initial shot before shooting him in the head in cold blood. It was an execution, and Krasikov was only caught by luck.

Research conducted by DER SPIEGEL and the investigative platform Bellingcat subsequently revealed that Krasikov was an assassin working on behalf of the Russian government. His victim had fought against the Russians in the Second Chechen War, and the murder in the middle of Germany’s capital was the revenge of the FSB, Putin’s domestic intelligence service, on an opponent.

Now Krasikov is a hero in the Russian security apparatus. But that is not all, as he probably knows Putin personally from the time when the latter served of deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s. According to sources in intelligence circles, Krasikov might have even served as Putin’s bodyguard during that period.

The killer’s value in the bargaining for Western prisoners was quickly recognized in Washington and at CIA headquarters in Langley. According to information obtained by DER SPIEGEL, in summer 2022U.S. representatives in Berlin approached their German counterparts in an effort to free Brittney Griner, the American basketball player, in the summer of 2022. Could Krasikov be used, the Americans asked, as part of a deal for a prisoner exchange?

The German government declined. Griner was eventually traded for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in December 2022. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Navalny’s Courage Impresses Berlin

At the same time, Alexei Navalny, the most important opposition figure in Russia, was serving a 19-year prison sentence. Since doctors at Berlin’s Charité hospital saved his life in 2020, he had been a popular figure in Germany. FSB agents had tried to assassinate him using a Novichok nerve agent.

In Germany, Navalny was a widely admired freedom fighter. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor at the time, visited him at his hospital bedside, and Olaf Scholz, Germany’s current chancellor but the finance minister and vice chancellor at that time, also met with Navalny discreetly. Both were impressed by the Russian’s courage.

For months, Berlin and Washington had been holding secret talks on whether Navalny could also be part of an exchange.

In March 2023, Russia detained the American reporter Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal based in Moscow, making him a valuable new bargaining chip for Putin. The pressure on American authorities to secure his release was mounting. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken eventually approached his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock.

Baerbock Puts on the Brakes

The foreign minister, a member of the Green party, was viewed as a reliable partner in the State Department. But she seemed rather opposed to the Americans’ request. The fact that Krasikov was sitting in prison serving a sentence for murder made a swap much more difficult. Baerbock is an important ally for the United States in the Ukraine war. Would she be upset, U.S. diplomats wondered, if they went over her head and took their case straight to the Chancellery?

In Berlin, the topic was intensely debated among the few insiders. Will Putin even let Navalny go? Who knows whether Navalny won’t immediately return to Russia, just like he did after surviving the poisoning? Is this not encouraging Putin to take even more Western hostages? And would Krasikov’s swap even be allowed under German law?

In fall 2023, Peter Frank provided a confidential answer to the Federal Ministry of Justice on the legal question. As Germany’s chief federal prosecutor at the time, Frank was in charge of enforcing Krasikov’s sentence. Given his position, he said that he could not welcome the release of a convicted murderer who had only served such a small part of his sentence. However, it was ultimately a decision for politicians to make, he added, and what would be needed was a deportation order for Krasikov and a corresponding directive from Berlin to the Public Prosecutor General. As this was happening, Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann was preparing to act in the event that a decision was made to trade Krasikov.

Short-Lived Optimism

Around new year, Baerbock signaled that she no longer wanted to stand in the way of an exchange. The path seemed clear now: Washington and Berlin agreed on a deal that basically provided for Krasikov and several Russian agents imprisoned in the West to be swapped for Gershkovich, Navalny and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine.

The deal was pitched to Moscow via informal channels. In the run-up to the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of February, officials on both sides of the Atlantic were confident that Moscow would approve the deal. Chancellery Minister Wolfgang Schmidt discreetly signaled to Navalny’s wife that she had reasons to be hopeful.

But the optimism was short-lived. Shocking news broke during the conference: Navalny had died in a Russian prison camp – probably murdered by representatives of Putin’s regime. In any case, Moscow was responsible for his death. A theory began circulating that Putin had ordered Navalny’s killing precisely because his archrival was supposed to be part of the deal. Although many still believe this theory, it has yet to be proved.

At first, the deal seemed to be off. But Russia was still holding three Americans and three Germans prisoner. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, soon approached Jens Plötner, Scholz’s foreign policy adviser, asking if something might still be possible after all.

The Germans soon became increasingly convinced that they wouldn’t be able to resist American pressure for long. The dependence of the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, on U.S. intelligence services probably played a role, too. On top of that, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian opposition figure, had fallen seriously ill in prison. Once again, Baerbock was said to have reservations about a deal.

Biden and Scholz Talk

A few months after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Scholz discussed the issue in person. In fact, it was at the very top of their agenda.

At the working level, the CIA and the BND were now negotiating with members of Russia’s FSB. In mid-July, senior representatives of the German government and the Biden administration held talks on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum in the U.S. state of Colorado.

The annual meeting in the Rocky Mountains is a rendezvous for the US security apparatus. But CIA chief William Burns canceled his planned visit at short notice.

Roger Carstens, Biden’s special envoy for hostage affairs, was decidedly tight-lipped at the conference. Somewhat ambiguously, he did say that the closer we get to an exchange, the less he can tell even the relatives of hostages about the status of the negotiations.

Carstens is a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces. But when he described taking care of the hostage families, he seemed more like a pastor. He talked about the happiness of speaking with freed prisoners. And he dismissed concerns that a deal would only encourage more arbitrary arrests in Russia. "The numbers don’t support that,” he said.