Beyond The Elation, Putin's Prisoner Swap Has Ominous Implications

When Russian security operative Vadim Krasikov returned to Moscow late on August 1 as part of a massive prisoner swap between Russia and the West, President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer himself, was on hand to greet him with a hug.

Krasikov had been serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 assassination in broad daylight of former Chechen militant Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. The judge in the case descr