Give full marks for integrity to the Wall Street Journal for this biting report on a prisoner swap they've long advocated. Their own reporter, Evan Gershkovich, got released after nearly 500 days of captivity over absurd espionage charges for reporting on Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. The WSJ has every reason to paint the complicated, multi-national exchange in an entirely positive light. 

And yet, the WSJ reports on the "dark figure" Putin really wanted back -- an assassin held in Germany who killed one of Putin's enemies in Berlin park five years ago, a Chechen separatist commander in exile:

Vadim Krasikov—a Russian hit man and former intelligence officer convicted of murdering an enemy of the Kremlin in a Berlin park—told a guard in the German prison where he was serving a life sentence that, “the Russian Federation will not leave me to rot in jail.”

On Thursday, that boast became reality. Krasikov was released by German authorities and handed over to Russia as part of the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, wrongfully convicted of espionage in July, was also part of the exchange.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally demanded Krasikov’s return to Russia. For him, the assassin’s release is meant to send a dual message: The Kremlin will hunt down its enemies, even if they flee to the West, and it won’t abandon those who remain loyal to his government.

This answers a question I raised earlier this morning. The four Russians in American custody seemed a bit small potatoes for Putin to engage in this complex a swap. A couple of them had smuggled US military tech and materiel to Russia, but they weren't assets on the same level as Viktor Bout -- and Putin knew that the US wanted Gershkovich and Paul Whelan badly, as well as the two other American journalists that Putin released today.

Krasikov, however, fits the bill entirely. He might be even more important to Putin and his covert-ops services than Bout was. In fact, Putin demanded Krasikov's release in trade for Whelan during the Brittney Griner negotiations, and refused any other formulation for Whelan. Krasikov's name came up repeatedly in reports around the Griner negotiations almost exactly two years ago, and then again in December 2022 when Biden tried cutting a deal for Whelan. 

At that time, "US officials" blamed Germany for not playing along, according to CNN. I wrote at the time that it was not parity or balanced to trade Whelan for Krasikov even if Whelan was actually engaged in espionage at the time, which Whelan and the US have denied all along:

Krasikov’s name came up repeatedly in press coverage, but that seems like a pretty ridiculous demand from Putin regarding a trade for an American. Supposedly Putin wants “parity” in exchanges, but Krasikov isn’t serving time for espionage. He assassinated a Chechen dissenter in 2019, and did so in Berlin. Europeans have grown tired of dealing with Russian assassins, and they aren’t going to start springing the ones that were incompetent enough to get caught at it.

The same “US officials” told CNN that Biden and his team tried to get Germany to deal Krasikov anyway. That is a shameful request, considering Putin’s murder spree in Europe. Germany apparently told Biden to pound sand, although they likely put it more diplomatically.

At the time, the same "US officials" told CNN that they'd tried to offer Alexander Vinnik in exchange for Whelan. Vinnik was released today in the multinational swap. Putin apparently thought Vinnik was small potatoes at that time, too.

The fact that we got four Americans out of Russian prisons is still great news. Prisoner exchanges rarely involve none but the clean-handed, too, especially when conducted with regimes like Putin's.  But the fact that we released one of Putin's assassins for three reporters and a businessman is not an indicator of strength. We just gave Putin someone who will strengthen his support from Russia's covert-ops ranks and likely will encourage them to conduct more assassinations of dissidents who escape to the West. 

And finally ... where is Marc Fogel? 

Marc Fogel, an Oakmont teacher serving a 14-year sentence in a Russian penal colony, wasn't part of Thursday's prisoner swap despite a push from U.S. lawmakers.

Fogel has been detained in a Russian prison since August 2021 after he was caught with less than an ounce of medical cannabis used to treat a back injury. The U.S. on Thursday secured the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, but not Fogel.

Amid the news of a 24-person prisoner swap between the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other Western countries, Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman along with U.S. Representatives Mike Kelly, Chris Deluzio and Guy Reschenthaler asked for Fogel to be included, saying he has severe health issues and has been unjustly imprisoned.

Why didn't the US insist on Fogel's release as part of this trade? They left Putin with leverage to get more of his agents released. It's inexplicable.