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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Shaun Walker in Warsaw and Deborah Cole in Berlin

Kremlin admits Vadim Krasikov is a Russian state assassin

Krasikov shakes the hand of Putin while Russian guards stand in the background
Vladimir Putin greets Vadim Krasikov at an airport near Moscow on 1 August. The president was said to be ‘maniacal’ about securing his return. Photograph: Mikhail Voskresensky/AP

The Kremlin has admitted that Vadim Krasikov, the assassin freed by Germany in a historic prisoner swap on Thursday, is a serving officer of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), essentially an acknowledgment that his 2019 murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin was a state-ordered hit.

It also hinted that he was linked to Vladimir Putin’s personal guard.

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