Russia exchanges spies for political prisoners: Gershkovich, Kara-Murza, Whelan, Yashin, Kurmasheva, Chanysheva, Orlov released

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HOW THE TALKS PROGRESSED

Negotiations on the exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West have been ongoing for several years, through different channels and in a variety of formats. In early 2022, The Insider's Christo Grozev (then a Bellingcat investigator) proposed a joint prisoner exchange with the U.S. and Germany. The key figure from the West would be Vadim Krasikov, convicted due to a joint investigation by The Insider and Bellingcat, while the key figure on the Russian side would be Alexei Navalny.

In a statement to The Insider, Grozev said:

“While this was a hard moral choice to make, as the assassin had taken the life of a Chechen/Georgian asylum seeker, it appeared to be the only way to ensure at least a chance for political change in Russia. It was also the only way to get many unjustly jailed Americans, Germans and Russians rotting in prisons in Russia.”

Initially, the Kremlin believed it only needed to negotiate with the United States, assuming Washington could influence the Europeans. However, Krasikov was arrested by Germany, making Berlin's involvement crucial for the talks. Putin hoped to swap Krasikov for Evan Gershkovich — an American journalist arrested specifically for the exchange. Negotiators even learned about Gershkovich's sentence before it was officially announced. Nonetheless, Putin's plan failed as the Germans showed no interest in “American spies” detained in Russia and were only willing to discuss exchanging Krasikov for Navalny, who became well-known after his poisoning attempt.

The negotiations were also complicated by the fact that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock believed that the release of the hitman Krasikov was unacceptable; Krasikov was a convicted murderer, while Russia was offering in exchange political prisoners falsely accused of espionage. Although this opinion wasn’t dominant in the ruling coalition, it was taken into account in the U.S., as Baerbock was perceived as Washington’s main ally in Germany in the context of the war with Ukraine and this topic was more important to them than the exchange.

By October 2023, a general consensus seemed to emerge, leading towards an 8-for-8 exchange with Krasikov and Navalny as the main figures. But Russia delayed confirming Navalny's inclusion until the last moment. Navalny was then killed in prison. Germany then deferred further negotiations for a swap.

According to Grozev, “The killing of Navalny in prison brought another moral dilemma; reward Putin with handing back the assassin despite Navalny's death, or prioritize the freedom of dozens of Russian and US innocently imprisoned people, including our colleagues Evan and Alsu.”

In April 2024, Germany signaled potential interest in an asymmetrical exchange: Putin would have to release multiple political prisoners for Krasikov alone. Meanwhile, the negotiation dynamics were shifting in Russia as well. Initially, Sergei Beseda, head of the FSB's Fifth Service, was the key negotiator on the Russian side. However, his position weakened after a series of failures and corruption scandals, and he lost interest in the exchange. In June 2024, Putin replaced Beseda with Alexei Komkov, who revitalized the negotiation process. Around this time, the German BND, represented by Deputy Head Philip Wolff, officially joined the talks. The negotiations quickly gained momentum, and within weeks, the parties reached an agreement.

The Russian prisoners were released by a presidential pardon, which, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not formally require an admission of guilt — or even a petition for pardon.

WHO IS RUSSIA GETTING?

Who is Vadim Krasikov?

Vadim Krasikov is an assassin who served in Vympel, a unit of the FSB Spetsnaz Center, and was later identified as the perpetrator of several contract killings, including that of businessman Alexander Kozlov in Karelia in 2007, businessman Albert Nazranov in Moscow 2015, and Chechen refugee Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019.

Krasikov was wanted in Russia, but he managed to avoid a life in jail and ended up at an FSB Spetsnaz training base near Moscow instead. After a few months of training, he was given a fake passport in the name of Sokolov and a modernized Glock pistol and was sent to Berlin to eliminate Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. Putin had publicly called Khangoshvili a terrorist but never presented any evidence of his involvement in any terrorist attack — and never made any official requests to Germany to extradite him as a terrorist.

After the assassination, Russia denied any involvement, but The Insider discovered Sokolov's real name and obtained documents proving he was a member of the Russian intelligence services, after which he was handed a life sentence in Germany. Subsequently, Putin stopped denying his connection to Krasikov, called the assassin a “patriot,” and announced that he was open to trading him for Evan Gershkovich.

Who are the Slovenian illegals?

Spouses Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, who were living in Slovenia posing as Argentine citizens Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Muñoz, were detained in Ljubljana in late 2022. “Maria” pretended to be an art gallery owner, but as The Insider discovered, no one knew her in the Slovenian art market.

The police identified them by comparing the fingerprints of the pseudo-Argentines and the Dultsevs, which were in the possession of Interpol. On the eve of the prisoner swap, they confessed. Although press reports suggest they were identified as officers of the SVR (Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service), the facts of their biography studied by The Insider suggest are more likely to be working for the GRU (the Main Intelligence Directorate).

The Turkish TV channel NTV later reported that the Dultsevs' two children were flying with them to Russia as part of the exchange, which meant that the prisoner swap actually included 26 people — 24 adults and two minors.

Pavel Rubtsov (“Pablo Gonzalez”)

On February 27, 2022, GRU agent Pavel Rubtsov, posing as Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez, was detained by Poland on the Polish-Ukrainian border and charged with spying for Russia. It was alleged that he used his status as a journalist to gather information for Russian intelligence services.

Among other things, Gonzalez gathered intelligence in Ukraine and attempted to gain the trust of Russian opposition activists. After his arrest, local security services examined the digital media seized from “Gonzalez” and found detailed reports on the activities of Zhanna Nemtsova, Boris Nemtsov’s daughter, and people from her entourage. The “journalist” was particularly interested in participants in a summer school of journalism from Ukraine and the United States.

Hacker Roman Seleznev

Russian hacker Roman Seleznev was sentenced in the United States to 27 years in prison for computer fraud and identity theft. Detained since 2014, Seleznev received his final sentence in 2018, marking the largest penalty for cybercrime in U.S. history. Prosecutors argued that Seleznev had “pioneered” the credit card fraud industry, significantly contributing to the growth of this underground market. They described him as “one of the most revered hackers in the criminal world.”

Since 2003, Seleznev had been selling stolen bank card data, primarily targeting U.S. citizens. U.S. intelligence agencies had been tracking his activities on hacker forums since the mid-2000s. They estimated the total damage from Seleznev's actions to exceed $169 million.

According to sources from the independent Russian outlet TV Rain, Seleznev was apprehended in the Maldives in 2014 following a tip-off from Sergei Mikhailov, the deputy head of the FSB's Center for Information Security, and his colleagues. Mikhailov allegedly provided intelligence on Russian cybercriminals to U.S. intelligence agencies — particularly the CIA. Seleznev's arrest, as the son of State Duma deputy Valery Seleznev (from the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), reportedly triggered an investigation into Mikhailov and his subordinates. In 2017, Mikhailov was detained and convicted of state treason, leading to a halt in U.S.-Russia cooperation on cybercrime investigations.

Seleznev was wanted by Interpol via a so-called “red notice.” He was detained by U.S. intelligence agents at the airport in Male, Maldives, on charges of computer fraud, hacking, breaking into bank accounts, and stealing credit card information, causing approximately $2 million in damages to U.S. citizens and organizations. He was then flown to the United States to face charges.

Businessman Vladislav Klyushin

On September 7, 2023, a court in Boston, Massachusetts, found the Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin guilty of insider trading and sentenced him to nine years in prison.

Klyushin was arrested in Switzerland in March 2021 and later extradited to the U.S. He was accused of participating in a scheme that involved the illegal use of confidential information for financial gain in the securities market. According to the indictment, the insider trading scheme, orchestrated outside the U.S., generated $93 million in profits for its participants.

Norwegian GRU “illegal” Mikhail Mikushin

In May 2022, a court in Norway charged an employee of the Arctic University of Tromsø with espionage and published his full name. The spy turned out to be Mikhail Valerievich Mikushin, born August 19, 1978. He posed as Brazilian citizen José Assis Giammaria, born in 1984, and in recent years successfully worked at the Norwegian University of Tromsø.

The Insider was able to confirm Mikushin's affiliation with the GRU, and at the same time studied his biography, coming to the conclusion that the “professor” did everything in his power to fail at his mission.

Vadim Konoshchenok

Konoshchenok was one of the members of the Serniya smuggling network, previously reported on by The Insider, which was involved in illegally exporting high-tech equipment from the United States to Russian state-owned companies via the EU.

As per U.S. investigators, the items smuggled included “advanced electronics and sophisticated testing equipment” intended for use in nuclear weapons development and other military and space-based applications. Investigators claim that once these goods reached Europe and Asia, they were repackaged and shipped from various “intermediate locations” before ultimately being sent to Russia.

The network's core companies secured state contracts totaling 5.2 billion rubles (over $60 million), while peripheral companies managed to secure 1.2 billion rubles (close to $14 million).

Konoshchenok was detained in Narva, Estonia, in November 2022, while transporting smuggled goods to Russia. He had been repeatedly stopped by Estonian border guards for smuggling semiconductors, other electronics, and bullets for sniper rifles into Russia. Despite these stops, he continued his smuggling activities until his arrest and subsequent extradition to the United States. U.S. authorities suggest that Konoshchenok served in Russian intelligence, not just as a smuggler.

Investigative documents reviewed by The Insider reveal that Konoshchenok personally identified himself as an “FSB colonel” — and suggested that the entire Serniya network was under the control of the Russian intelligence services. In correspondence seized from Konoshchenok, U.S. authorities discovered a photo of him wearing an FSB uniform, which he had sent to a contact with the caption “passport photo.”

As discovered by The Insider, Serniya’s clients included FSB institutes, military communications developers, as well as Russia’s Federal Protection Service (FSO) and Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), as well as multiple other Russian government and security agencies. The network had been in operation since at least 2017.

WHO HAS RUSSIA RELEASED FROM PRISON?

Evan Gershkovich

A correspondent for The Wall Street Journal whom Russia sentenced to 16 years in prison last month, Gershkovich became the first foreign media employee in the history of modern Russia to be arrested on espionage charges.

Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg, where he flew to interview PR expert Yaroslav Shirshikov about public attitudes towards recruitment to the Wagner Group. Russian security services pursued the reporter while he was on an editorial assignment, recording his movements on camera and pressuring his sources. The journalist speculated that his phone might be tapped. During another trip, to Pskov, he was also followed and filmed by unknown individuals.

According to the prosecution, Gershkovich “acted on the instructions of the CIA to collect classified information on the activities of the defense enterprise JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod related to military equipment production and repair in March 2023 in the Sverdlovsk region” and did so “with utmost discretion.” According to the photographer who worked with Gershkovich, the reporter was collecting material for an article on how people in Russian regions perceive the war. Before his arrest, he had visited Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Tagil and planned to travel to other cities. According to media reports, Gershkovich also examined the recruitment practices of the Wagner PMC.

Vladimir Kara-Murza

In April 2023, a Russian court sentenced political activist and publicist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison. He had been kept in a Moscow pre-trial detention center since April 2022 on charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian army, cooperation with an “undesirable organization,” and state treason.

The latter charge had been brought forward in response to Kara-Murza’s public speeches in the United States and Europe, in which he condemned politically motivated state terror, election fraud, and human rights violations in Russia, and called his country the aggressor in the war with Ukraine. According to the investigation, in doing so he “created threats to the external security and territorial integrity” of Russia. According to media reports, Kara-Murza was accused of harming Russia “out of self-interest” by participating in the Helsinki Committee award ceremony for political prisoner Yury Dmitriev.

Kara-Murza also wrote columns for the Washington Post from his prison cell, which won him the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2024. As per the award's website, the prize was awarded “for passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.”

In 2021, The Insider and Bellingcat published an investigation that shed light on the two attempts made by FSB NII-2 officers to poison the opposition activist and named the suspects. Shortly after, Kara-Murza filed an application with the Russian Investigative Committee for attempted murder, but the criminal case was denied.

After the assassination attempts, the politician’s health sharply deteriorated. He also suffers from polyneuropathy, a severe chronic disease that in theory should exempt him from serving his sentence in a penal colony. On July 10, after numerous refusals, he was finally admitted to Hospital 11 of the Federal Penitentiary System in Omsk for medical examination.

Paul Whelan

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and later head of security at the auto parts firm BorgWarner, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 when he flew to Russia for the wedding of his former colleague. In June 2020, he was found guilty of espionage against Russia and sentenced to 16 years in a strict regime colony. He pleaded not guilty.

On December 28, 2018, Paul Whelan was detained by FSB officers in his hotel room while receiving a USB drive from a member of the Russian security services. According to the investigation, the USB drive contained information about employees of one of the divisions of the FSB's economic security service. Whelan claimed that he expected to receive a flash drive with photos of churches from Sergiev Posad from a longtime acquaintance who he knew to be a Russian officer.

Whelan attributed his criminal prosecution to a debt of about 100,000 rubles, which his old acquaintance, an FSB operative, allegedly refused to repay. This acquaintance may have been a major in the FSB's 'K' department with the last name Yatsenko. The officer allegedly gave Whelan the flash drive containing data, along with a bottle of whiskey, on December 28, 2018.

Whelan's lawyers stated that after his detention, they were informed he could be exchanged for the arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a sentence in a U.S. prison from 2012 to 2022 on charges of illegal arms trading and financing terrorism. However, the prisoner swap, which occurred without Whelan, ultimately involved Viktor Bout being exchanged for WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner, who was convicted in Russia for smuggling drugs after a vape cartridge containing THC was found in her luggage.

The Insider interviewed Whelan in July 2021.

Ilya Yashin

On December 9, 2022, Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court sentenced the opposition politician Yashin to 8.5 years in a “general regime” penal colony for spreading “false information” about the Russian army, marking the strictest penalty under this charge at the time.

The case stemmed from Yashin's YouTube stream discussing the Russian military's actions in Bucha. Previously, he was fined 30,000 rubles for “discrediting the Russian army” by posting a 1969 protest photo against the Vietnam War with the caption: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity. 50 years have passed, and the slogans are still relevant.” In total, Yashin faced four charges for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army.

Alsu Kurmasheva

Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old U.S.-Russian citizen, worked as a journalist for Idel.Realii, the regional news outlet of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Tatar-Bashkir Service. She lived in Prague, Czechia.

In May 2023, Kurmasheva traveled to Russia for family reasons. On June 2, as she attempted to fly back to Czechia, she was detained at Kazan airport. Both her Russian and U.S. passports were confiscated, and she was later fined for failing to inform Russian authorities of her dual citizenship.

On October 18, while still in Tatarstan awaiting the return of her documents, Kurmasheva was again detained for allegedly “failing to submit documents required for inclusion in the register of foreign agents.” Kurmasheva had not been included in the register of “foreign agents” at that time. According to her lawyer, Edgar Matevosyan, Russian authorities believed that as a potential “foreign agent,” she should have self-registered.

In December, a second case was opened against Kurmasheva for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. The charge was related to her editorial work on the book “No to War. 40 stories of Russians opposing the invasion of Ukraine.” Kurmasheva had been in pre-trial detention since October 2023.

On July 19, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan sentenced Kurmasheva to 6 years and 6 months in prison after finding her guilty on the “false information” charge. Kurmasheva's case, like that of fellow reporter Evan Gershkovich, was heard behind closed doors. Her lawyer stated that this was the final verdict, with no further trials to follow.

Oleg Orlov

In March 2023, a criminal case was launched against Oleg Orlov, a 71-year-old human rights activist and chairman of Memorial, following searches at Memorial as part of another investigation into the “rehabilitation of Nazism.” During the investigation, equipment and archival documents were seized from the organization.

Orlov was accused of discrediting the Russian army in an article titled “They wanted fascism — they got it,” in which he described Russia's military actions in Ukraine as “the heaviest blow to the future of the country.” The article was first published in the French publication Mediapart and was later shared by Orlov on his Facebook page.

On October 11, 2023, the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow fined Orlov 150,000 rubles. The prosecutor's office appealed the verdict, seeking to increase the punishment to three years of imprisonment. On February 27, 2024, the court found Orlov guilty and sentenced him to 2.5 years in a penal colony. Upon his admission to SIZO-5 'Vodnik,' Orlov was offered an agreement to be sent to the front in Ukraine. When he mentioned his age, the detention center staff responded that it did not concern them.

Oleg Orlov joined the initiative group 'Memorial,' which advocated for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in the USSR, in 1988. He was a confidant of human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov in the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, worked on the Supreme Soviet staff, and contributed to laws aimed at humanizing Russia's penitentiary system and rehabilitating political repression victims. He also became chairman of Memorial.

From 1994, Orlov worked in Chechnya, meeting with the Chechen separatist leaders Dzhokhar Dudaev and Aslan Maskhadov, taking part in prisoner exchange negotiations, and inspecting hospitals and POW camps. In 1995, he negotiated with terrorists led by Shamil Basayev during the Budyonnovsk attack, eventually becoming a voluntary hostage to guarantee the agreements reached in exchange for the release of most hostages.

In 2007, on the eve of an opposition rally in the city of Nazran, Orlov and a group of TV journalists from REN TV were abducted by masked armed men, driven to a field outside the city, and severely beaten. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held the Russian authorities responsible for Orlov's abduction.

In June 2021, before the criminal case, Orlov complained to the ECHR about threats from the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who had repeatedly called for the activist's murder, imprisonment, and intimidation for insulting his honor online.

“Those who violate harmony between people, engage in gossip, discord, if we don't stop them by killing, jailing and scaring them, nothing will work,” Kadyrov declared. According to Kadyrov, it is impossible to “leave a person who insults honor [unpunished], even if the whole world burns with blue flames, the laws of all countries will be violated.”

Alexandra Skochilenko

Alexandra (“Sasha”) Skochilenko was detained on April 11, 2022. Her home was searched prior to her arrest. According to the investigation, on March 31, the artist distributed “false” information about the Russian army in the “Perekrestok” supermarket chain — Skochilenko had swapped out the price tags of goods with messages about civilians killed in the shelling of the Mariupol Drama Theater.

The investigator deemed the information distributed “false,” while the action itself was “committed on the grounds of political hatred.” Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed that Skochilenko “was aware of the real state of affairs in the theater of military operations.”

On November 16, 2023, the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Alexandra Skochilenko to seven years in prison. Shortly after the verdict, the judge in her case was promoted to deputy chairman of the Kalininsky District Court.

Skochilenko suffers from serious health issues, including a congenital heart defect, gluten intolerance, and bipolar disorder. In her final statement, she described experiencing daily stomach pain and significant heart problems. She pleaded with the judges to consider the harm of remaining in pre-trial detention and requested to be placed under house arrest. However, her appeal was rejected.

Andrei Pivovarov

On May 31, 2021, Andrei Pivovarov, former head of Open Russia, was removed from a flight between St. Petersburg and Warsaw and detained at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport after passing through passport control. He faced criminal charges for involvement in the activities of an “undesirable organization.” The charges were based on Pivovarov's August 12, 2020, Facebook post in Krasnodar, which promoted the “United Democrats” and included fundraising appeals.

30 Facebook posts and one repost were later added to the charges. These posts pertained to protests in Khabarovsk, opposition to Russia's constitutional amendments, and support for those detained at protest rallies. In July 2022, Pivovarov was sentenced to four years in a penal colony and banned from engaging in social and political activities, including using the Internet, for eight years. In May 2023, he was transferred to a strict regime in a Karelian colony and repeatedly placed in solitary confinement.

Ksenia Fadeeva

Ksenia Fadeeva, the former head of Navalny's headquarters in Tomsk, was sentenced in December 2023 to nine years in a penal colony. She was convicted of “organizing the activities of an extremist community using her official position” and “participating in a non-profit organization that infringes on the personality and rights of citizens.” Additionally, Fadeeva was fined 500,000 rubles.

The Memorial Human Rights Society regards Fadeeva as a political prisoner, attributing her persecution and incarceration to her work with Navalny's headquarters. Since 2020, Fadeeva had served in the Tomsk City Duma but was stripped of her powers in June this year after the verdict took effect.

Lilia Chanysheva

Chanysheva is the former head of Alexei Navalny's headquarters in Ufa, Bashkortorstan. She was detained in Ufa in November 2021, becoming the first defendant in the case of creating an “extremist community” after the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) and Navalny's headquarters were recognized as such — despite the fact that they were immediately dissolved after the designation. In fact, Chanysheva's “extremist” charges were brought retroactively for activities at a time when the organizations had not yet been recognized as extremist.

In June 2023, she was found guilty of creating an “extremist community,” “inciting to extremism” and “creating an organization that violates the rights of citizens.” However, she was sentenced only under the article on the organization of an “extremist community” — the other two charges were dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In her last word, Chanysheva stated that she was being tried for her legal political activities. The state prosecutor requested a 12-year sentence for the activist.

On June 4, 2023, Chanysheva was sentenced to 7.5 years in a penal colony. In April 2024, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan increased the sentence to 9.5 years following a retrial.

Vadim Ostanin

Vadim Ostanin is the former head of Alexei Navalny's headquarters in Barnaul. In his position, he spoke out about local corrupt officials and helped local residents influence their work.

Ostanin was detained in December 2021 after being accused of “participating in an extremist community” and a “non-profit organization encroaching on citizens’ privacy and rights.” According to the version voiced by Russia’s Investigative Committee, the activist continued to work in Navalny's organizations after they were recognized as “extremist.” In March 2023, Ostanin, already in pre-trial detention, said that his health had deteriorated while he was incarcerated. He also reported being pressured by the authorities, saying that he was “promised bad treatment” if he did not “confess to everything.”

Ostanin was sentenced to 9 years in a general regime penal colony in July last year.

Rico Krieger

Rico Krieger, a former medic with the German Red Cross, was detained in Belarus in October 2023. He faced six charges: illegal actions with firearms, rendering transport or communication routes unusable, creation of or participation in an extremist formation, agent activity, mercenary activity, and an act of terrorism.

It was alleged that Krieger entered Belarus in October 2023 under the guise of a tourist but was actually on assignment from Ukrainian security services. He purportedly retrieved an improvised explosive device from a cache and placed it on railroad tracks on October 5. The explosion caused an estimated $516 in damage, though no one was injured. Krieger was sentenced to death

Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Krieger on July 30, 2024.

Herman Moyzhes

On May 28th, German-Russian citizen Herman Moyzhes, a lawyer and cycling activist, was detained and later charged with treason.

At first they tried to stop Herman Moyzhes on the embankment of the Krukov Canal in St. Petersburg, but he was on a bicycle and took the maneuvers of law enforcers for inadequate behavior of drivers, so he just dodged and left. He was detained near a house on the Fontanka embankment. Moyzhes had already been taken to Moscow's detention center, at the request of the security services the court arrested him for two months. The case was handled by the central office of the FSB. The house where his daughter's mother lives was searched. The search warrant specified Article 275 — treason.

Kevin Lik

Lik, 19, became Russia’s first school student convicted of high treason. He was sentenced to four years in a general-security penal colony in December 2023.

According to the court’s decision, he photographed the deployment sites of a military unit in Maykop, a city in southern Russia, and emailed the images to a “representative of a foreign state.” Lik holds a Russian and a German passport, and in the summer of 2022, his mother decided to return to Germany with her son.

Demuri (Dieter) Voronin

The 45-year-old political scientist, a citizen of both Russia and Germany, was a defendant in the case of journalist Ivan Safronov.

Safronov, a former defense reporter for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, was tried on secret evidence and was convicted of high treason in 2022 and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Voronin was affiliated with the German Association for Eastern European Studies (DGO) and the Russian Association for Public Relations («Российская ассоциация по связям с общественностью», or «РАСО»). From 2015 to 2019, he managed the Russian firm Resost, which was involved in political consulting.

In February 2021, Voronin was detained during a visit to Russia and accused of receiving information from Safronov, which he allegedly sold to foreign intelligence agencies. The indictment claimed that Safronov and Voronin passed classified information about the Russian Armed Forces' activities in Syria to German intelligence and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

In March 2023, the Moscow City Court found Voronin guilty of state treason and sentenced him to 13 years and 3 months in a high-security penal colony.

Patrick Schobel

German national Patrick Schobel, 38, was detained on February 14, 2024, upon arriving at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport from Istanbul. During an inspection of his luggage, authorities found a pack of “Fink Green Goldbears” with packaging that featured a marijuana leaf image.

Schobel faced a criminal case for drug smuggling — an offense that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in Russia. During a court hearing in St. Petersburg, Schobel requested that his detention be replaced with house arrest and offered to surrender his passport, but the judge denied these requests.

During the trial, Schobel said that the candy was sold legally in his native country, adding that he did not know about the ban on such drugs in Russia and that he had bought the bears a year ago to consume before long flights. Schobel was awaiting the conclusion of the trial at the time of his exchange.