CNN —
Russia refused to release Paul Whelan along with Brittney Griner unless a former colonel with the Russian domestic spy organization, who is currently in German custody, was also released as part of a prisoner swap, US officials told CNN, although the US the names of several other Russian prisoners in US custody revealed they were ready to act.
The US could not comply with ex-Colonel Vadim Krasikov’s request because he is serving a life sentence in Germany for murder.
CNN first reported exclusively in August that the Russians had demanded that Krasikov be released along with Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who was serving a 25-year sentence in the US, in exchange for Whelan and Griner.
US officials were quietly inquiring with the Germans if they might be willing to include Krasikov in the deal, a senior German government source told CNN earlier this year. But ultimately the US failed to secure Krasikov’s release. The German government is not ready to seriously consider including Krasikov – who murdered a Georgian national in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019 – in a possible deal, the German source said.
The US made several other offers to the Russians, sources said, to try to get them to agree to include Whelan in the swap. Among the names released by the US was Alexander Vinnik, a Russian citizen who was extradited to the US in August on charges of money laundering, hacking and extortion. The US also offered to trade Roman Seleznev, a convicted Russian cybercriminal currently serving a 14-year sentence in the US, sources said.
A lawyer for Seleznev did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Frédéric Bélot, a lawyer who represented Vinnik in France before his extradition to the United States, told CNN on Friday that he was not aware of any recent talks between Moscow and Washington about including Vinnik in a possible prisoner swap.
But Bélot said he could envisage Vinnik taking part in prisoner exchange negotiations in the future.
“She [Vinnik and Whelan] are among the possible ‘candidates’ for the next swap,” Bélot said in a text message to CNN.
Since Vinnik’s extradition to the US in August, Bélot has approached Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov directly to help secure Vinnik’s release from US custody.
But ultimately, the Russians said they would only be willing to trade someone they believed to be a spy – Whelan, who was convicted on espionage charges in 2019 – for one of Russia’s own spies: Krasikov.
The National Security Council declined to comment. A senior Biden administration official admitted to CNN Thursday night that the Russian side has repeatedly called for someone not even in US custody, despite the US making a number of different proposals. In the end, the Russians kept asking for the same thing that the US simply couldn’t deliver, the official said
“We have shown openness to talk about what is actually available to us and only received in response a demand for something that is not available to us,” the official said, repeating that the Russians had refused what had been offered to secure Whelan’s release.