Putin spoke about the crimes of the Chechen commander killed in Germany

President Vladimir Putin said that Wall Street Journal (WSJ) journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia on espionage charges, could be exchanged if US intelligence agencies cooperate. In the context of the exchange, the president recalled a Russian convicted in Germany who shot and killed Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. The president also spoke about the war crimes of the shot commander.

In the context of a potential exchange, Vladimir Putin recalled a Russian man sentenced in Germany to life imprisonment for murder. “Sitting in one country, a country that is an ally of the United States, is a man who, for patriotic reasons, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals,” the president said in interview American presenter Tucker Carlson.

According to Vladimir Putin, the commander laid out captured Russian soldiers on the road, and then drove a car over their heads. “What kind of person is this and is it a person? But there was a patriot who eliminated him in one of the European capitals. Whether he did this on his own initiative or not is another question,” the president said.

In 2021, a court in Berlin sentenced a 56-year-old Russian man to life imprisonment for the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. According to the prosecution, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was a field commander in Chechnya and participated in attacks on Russian soldiers. The prosecution considered his murder politically motivated. According to the prosecution, the convict was associated with the FSB and acted on orders from the Russian authorities. The media wrote that the person who killed Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was FSB officer Vadim Krasikov. At the same time, Russia has repeatedly denied any connection with the murder of the Chechen commander.

According to sources CNNRussia refused to include American citizen Paul Whelan in the prisoner exchange because the United States could not agree on the release of Vadim Krasikov.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was killed in a park in Berlin on August 23, 2019. According to investigators, the Russian approached him on a bicycle and fired three times from a Glock 26 pistol with a silencer. In December 2019, President Vladimir Putin called Zelimkhan Khangoshvili a person who “took part in hostilities, a separatist,” as well as one of the organizers of the terrorist attack in the Moscow metro.

Evan Gershkovich was detained in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg. Since then he has been under arrest in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. According to the FSB, the journalist, on instructions from the American side, collected information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constituted a state secret.

Anastasia Larina