However, he firmly rejected the request. "Holding two US citizens hostage in exchange for a killer in a third country is not a serious counteroffer," Kirby said. "This is a malicious attempt to evade a very serious US offer and proposal." Russia must take the US offer seriously.
The US is currently trying to free basketball player Brittney Griner and former US soldier Paul Whelan who are also being held in Russia. Washington has therefore submitted an offer to Moscow, which was also the subject of talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday.
According to media reports, the US plan communicated weeks ago includes an exchange of the two US citizens with the Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout, who is in prison in the US. CNN then reported on Friday, citing informed circles, that Russian representatives had requested through informal channels that the United States release Vadim K. as part of a prisoner exchange.
K., who is said to have been a colonel in the Russian secret service FSB, was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2021 for the so-called Tiergarten murder. The Berlin Court of Appeal saw it as proven that in August 2019 he had shot a Chechen-born Georgian in the Kleiner Tiergarten on behalf of Russian state authorities.
According to CNN, Russia's demand for the man's release was seen as problematic, especially as K. is serving his sentence in Germany. However, US representatives had contacted Germany to find out in principle whether K. could become part of the swap deal, the news channel reported, citing a German government official. But that was never seriously considered.
Basketball star Griner was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in mid-February for possession of cannabis oil. She faces up to ten years in prison for drug smuggling. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges in 2020.
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