All implications are that some of the people involved in the recent prisoner swap between Moscow and several Western countries were CIA espionage assets, Scott Ritter has told Sputnik.
The exchange that occurred on August 1 appears to have been “a deal hashed out between the Russian secret services and the American CIA,” noted the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-UN weapons inspector.
Commenting on what is being called the biggest such swap since the Cold War, Ritter pointed out that among the 16 prisoners released by Russia was Evan Gershkovich, “caught red-handed receiving Russian secrets.” The Wall Street Journal reporter was subsequently charged with espionage, found guilty at trial, and meted out a lengthy sentence.
US Marine veteran Paul Whelan was likewise charged with espionage, while self-described Russian political figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, as it turns out, had a US green card.
“This implies there was a special relationship between him [Kara-Murza] and the US government that maybe the US government doesn't want to talk about in public,” Ritter said. Kara-Murza “appears to have been on the CIA payroll as well,” he noted.
As for the Russian side, among the eight people released by the US in Thursday’s prisoner swap was Vadim Krasikov, recalled Scott Ritter.
The former Russian intelligence officer was arrested in Germany in 2019 and accused by Berlin of terminating Chechen terrorist Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on German soil.
Krasikov was given a life-sentence in German prison for wiping out a warlord, “somebody who had butchered, murdered Russian prisoners of war during the Chechen conflict and, accordingly, was hunted down and killed in Berlin,” Ritter underscored.
Looking ahead, the pundit suggested that the latest prisoner exchange taking place in the twilight of Joe Biden’s presidency “may be the best that US-Russian relations are gonna be for some time now.”
“I don't think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years. So it needed to happen now, and that's why it did. The largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. Who knows what the future will hold... Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend of good relations, but probably not,” Ritter concluded.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated on Thursday that eight Russian citizens, who were detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, have been returned to Russia. The exchange took place at Ankara airport (Turkiye) on August 1, 2024, and also included the repatriation of minor children.
The security service added that the recently returned Russians were exchanged for a group of individuals who had been acting on behalf of foreign states, compromising Russia's security.