Kremlin acknowledges intelligence operatives among the Russians who were freed in swap

New details have emerged on the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, with the Kremlin acknowledging for the first time that some of the Russians held in the West were from its security services. Families of freed dissidents, meanwhile, expressed their joy at the surprise release. President Vladimir Putin embraced each of the eight Russian returnees at a Moscow Airport and promised them state awards. Among them was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a former Chechen fighter in Berlin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Krasikov is an officer of the Federal Security Service — a fact reported in the West while Moscow denied any state involvement.