Putin wants Berlin assassin Vadim Krasikov, but prisoner swap is murky

In the summer of 2013, a Moscow restaurant owner was gunned down in the Russian capital. A hooded man jumped off a bike and shot his victim twice before fleeing.   Six years later, an exiled Chechen commander, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was murdered in a busy Berlin park in eerily similar circumstances, shot by a man on a bike with a silenced Glock 26 in broad daylight.   The assailant was arrested after dumping a pistol and wig in the River Spree close to the Reichstag, the building housing the German parliament. A passport bearing the name "Vadim Sokolov" was found on the Berlin assassin, but authorities quickly concluded that was not his name after all.   The bald, strongly built man they had arrested was actually Vadim Krasikov, a Russian national with links to the FSB, the Russian security service - and the prime suspect in the 2013 murder in Moscow.   In a recent interview with US TV talk show host Tucker Carlson, Russia's President Vladimir Putin appeared to confirm reports that his country was seeking the release of the "patriot" Krasikov in exchange for American journalist Evan Gershkovich.   This month marked one year since Mr Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained in Russia on espionage charges that are denied by him, his newspaper and the US government.   Mr Gershkovich isn't the only American in a Russian jail whose fate could be entwined with Krasikov's. Former US Marine Paul Whelan and US-Russian citizen Alsu Kurmasheva are also detained in Russia on charges widely viewed as politically motivated. Even the late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence in Russia, was said to be part of a swap involving Krasikov before he died, according to his allies. Following the Russian election, President Putin said he had agreed to release Navalny in return "for some people" held in the West, but the White House said that was the first it had heard of any such deal.   If President Putin's price stays the same, it means the most viable way of securing the release of the detained Americans would be a complex prisoner swap for Krasikov needing the cooperation of Germany, the US and Russia.   Speaking to the BBC, German politician Roderich Kiesewetter said the deal would force Berlin into "hostage diplomacy". So why does Putin seem so desperate to get Krasikov back?   State-sanctioned killing The first clues of a possible Kremlin hand in the Berlin murder come from Krasikov's background - or rather, the lack of one. Documents obtained by the Bellingcat investigative website show he was wanted over the 2013 Moscow murder. However, two years later, the arrest warrant was withdrawn and the "Vadim Krasikov" identity seemingly vanished into thin air.   That is when "Vadim Sokolov", age 45, appeared. In 2015 he got a passport, and, in 2019, a tax identification number.   A German court concluded that this documentation could only be sanctioned by the Kremlin, and therefore that Vadim Krasikov had state support for the Berlin murder.   "Russian state authorities ordered the accused to liquidate the victim," a German presiding judge said after sentencing Krasikov to life in prison. His victim, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was a Chechen rebel commander between 2000 and 2004, when Chechnya was fighting a war of independence against Russia.   To Western observers, Mr Khangoshvili seemed likely to be part of a string of Moscow-ordered assassinations of Chechen exiles in Europe and the Middle East.   The Kremlin denied orchestrating the Berlin murder, and dismissed the verdict against Krasikov as "politically motivated".   However, in his Tucker Carlson interview, President Putin appeared to make an admission when he said negotiations were under way for an exchange involving a Russian "patriot" who had "eliminated a bandit" in a European capital.   Ulrich Lechte, who sits on the German government's foreign affairs committee, told the BBC that President Putin's desire to retrieve Krasikov is "a clear admission of guilt and shows how unscrupulously and unchallenged Russia has been able to act in our country".