Assassin, Spy Couple and DNC Hacker: Who Putin’s Getting in Prisoner Swap

In a sweeping and complex prisoner swap between Russia and the West on Thursday — the largest since the Cold War — the U.S. and some of its allies agreed to exchange eight Russian detainees in return for the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans, along with a number of Russian dissidents held in Russian prisons.

High-profile detainees being turned over to Russia in the swap include an assassin, a pair of sleeper agents and a hacker linked to the targeting of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. These are the among those headed back to Russia as part of the deal.

Vadim Krasikov

A Russian intelligence agent convicted of the 2019 assassination of Chechen rebel Zelimkhan Kangoshvili in Germany, Krasikov had been serving a life sentence in a German prison. His release was seen as the crux of the larger swap.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously suggested Russia would be willing to release Gershkovich — if Krasikov was included in a prisoner exchange. He’s now getting his wish.

Krasikov is also said to be behind at least two other killings, including a Moscow restaurant owner in 2015 and a business man in the northern European region of Karelia 2015.

Artem and Anna Dultsev

Detained in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2022, the Russian couple had been posing as Argentine citizens and were said to be using Slovenia as a base to travel to the EU on behalf of Moscow, delivering cash to other Russian sleeper agents.

Anna had been working under the guise of an art dealer and gallery owner, while her husband posed as an IT businessman.

Both pleaded guilty to espionage and were sentenced to 19 months each on Wednesday, a day before the swap.

Pavel Rubtsov

Journalist Pablo González Yagüe (born Pavel Rubtsov) was detained by Polish authorities in Przemyśl in February 2022. He was accused of spying for Russian intelligence, allegedly using his journalistic role to gather information for the GRU.

He had worked as an independent journalist for various media outlets, focusing on Eastern Europe and former Soviet states. He has denied the charges of spying.

Roman Seleznev

Seleznev is the son of a member of the Russian parliament who has been described as “one of the most prolific credit-card thieves in history.”

Detained in the Maldives in 2014 and handed over to American authorities, he was found guilty of fraud, computer hacking, possession of illegally obtained credit cards, and theft of personal data. Seleznev was sentenced to 27 years.

An investigation found that he was involved in a hacking scheme estimated to have caused at least $170 million in damages that involved the theft and sale of customer credit card details from cash registers in stores and restaurants across the U.S.

Vladislav Klyushin

Klyushin, a Russian businessman, was arrested in Switzerland at the request of American authorities in 2021.

He was sentenced to nine years in 2023, accused of hacking into multiple companies, using the information retrieved for insider trading.

One of Klyushin’s employees was among the 12 alleged GRU agents indicted in the U.S. in 2018 for hacking Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Mikhail Mikushin

Mikushin was arrested in Norway in 2022, accused of spying for Russia’s GRU while posing as a Brazilian researcher at the Arctic University of Norway.

Vadim Konoshchenok

Konoshchenok has been described by U.S. authorities as a Russian citizen with alleged FSB ties.

Konoshchenok is alleged to have been involved in smuggling goods from the U.S. to Russia, including illegally procuring arms for the war in Ukraine. He has denied the charges against him, according to Russian state media.

Alexander Vinnik

Vinnik was accused by U.S. authorities of laundering over $4 billion.

Prosecutors alleged bitcoin stolen from Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Mt.Gox were traded on the platform Vinnik founded – BTC-e, which was once the largest Russia-language crypto exchange.

He has also been accused by the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office of embezzling 600,000 rubles from an unspecified organization. Vinnik’s lawyer said in court filings last year that he was “the subject of political negotiations over a prisoner swap with Russia at the highest levels of the government.”

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