2024-08-02 21:11:40
Moscow also reported that the children of a pair of undercover spies released by Slovenia only found out they were Russians when they boarded the plane to be returned to Russia.
“V. Krasikov is an FSB employee,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, adding that he serves in the secretive and elite Alpha unit.
Mr. Peskov also said that Krasikov “served with some of the president’s bodyguards.”
V. Krasikov was imprisoned for life in Germany for the fact that in one of the Berlin parks in 2019 killed one of the Chechen rebel commanders. According to German judges, this murder was carried out at the behest of the Russian state.
An earlier investigation by Bellingcat identified Krasikov as having ties to Russia’s FSB, although a statement on Monday was Moscow’s first public confirmation that he was an FSB agent.
On Thursday, Putin greeted Russians returning from prisons – some of whom he said had a “direct connection” to the military – telling them that “the motherland has not forgotten you”.
D. Peskov confirmed that the Russian couple released by Slovenia are also spies.
Artiomas Dulceva and Anna Dulceva, whose two children were also sent to Russia under the terms of the deal, posed in Ljubljana as a couple from Argentina, owners of an IT services company and an art gallery.
“The children of illegal immigrants who arrived yesterday found out that they were Russians only on the plane that flew from Ankara. They don’t speak Russian,” D. Peskov said.
Putin greeted the children on the runway in Moscow by saying “buenos noches”, which means “good evening” in Spanish.
“Illegals” are Russian spies operating under cover, living in foreign countries for years or even decades with forged identity documents and collecting information that they send back home to Moscow.
In a historic prisoner swap in which Moscow released US citizens Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Als Kurmashev and a group of Russian dissidents and activists, ten Russians were also released – eight prisoners and two children.
2024-08-02 21:11:40