That’s just a plain wrong assessment of the original German story, that broke a few days ago. Macron, Scholz and Putin (Edit: Putin wasn’t in at that point in late February - at least that’s the original story) wanted to exchange Nawalny for Krasikov, but since his death, the whole thing is basically done, because there is no one else to exchange for Krasikov.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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.

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.

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.

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”.

“Its official remit is counter-terrorism operations at home, but it has in many ways returned to its original roots, as a unit tasked with covert ‘wet-work’ - sabotage and assassination - abroad,” Putin historian and Russian security expert Mark Galeotti told the BBC.

Krasikov personally met Putin at a target shooting range while serving with Vympel, owned a BMW and Porsche, and travelled for work regularly, according to an interview his brother-in-law gave The Insider.

The original article contains 1,279 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!