Quotes
There are ongoing conversations right now, in discussions with the Russians, to see what we can do, to try to get Mr. Fogel home,
It's not a behavior that we think is going to change anytime soon, which is why we urge Americans not to travel to Russia,
Nobody's delighted or doing backflips over here because Mr. Krasikov is now a free man. That's what negotiations are all about. They require tough decisions, tough calls. The president was willing to make that tough call in order to get these — all these individuals, not just the Americans, all of them — released,
We’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia — including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over,
the White House said in a press release As alleged, the defendant was a critical participant in a scheme to provide sensitive, American-made electronics and ammunition in furtherance of Russia's war efforts and weapons development, violating U.S. export controls, economic sanctions and other criminal statues,
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace wrote in a press release at the time But I remain concerned that continuing to trade innocent Americans for actual Russian criminals held in the U.S. and elsewhere sends a dangerous message to Putin that only encourages further hostage taking by his regime,
That is why it was important to us that we have an obligation to protect German nationals as well as solidarity with the United States,
The leaders who are engaged in this diplomacy are trying to do whatever it is they can to get the best deal they can to bring their citizens home,
To see 24 people being exchanged as part of this deal from 7 different countries and that's a huge amount of coordination and shows that sometimes to get a deal done you have to put more on the table,
The release was only possible because Russian citizens with intelligence backgrounds who were imprisoned in Europe were deported and transferred to Russia,
Hebestreit told reporters Sometimes, for reasons of humanity, you have to do a deal with the devil."
Michael Roth, the head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, summed up Berlin's decision on X, formerly Twitter, by saying It was not easy for anyone to make this decision to deport a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment after only a few years in prison,
said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who interrupted his summer vacation to greet some of the released prisoners upon their arrival in Germany Many of the prisoners feared for their health and even their lives,
For you, I will do this,
In January, Biden personally approached Scholz about the possibility of a prisoner swap, to which Scholz responded ... Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Thursday It's a question that we grapple with every time that we look at the hard decisions involved in one of these exchanges."
When asked if the historic prisoner exchange would incentivize hostile countries to arrest more Americans, Sullivan said I mean look, FSB [Federal Security Service] connection, paid assassin, ordered by the Russian Government to conduct the assassinations that he did… this is a bad dude, and a member of the Russian intelligence services. They obviously considered him an asset and wanted him back, and it was no small thing for the German government to let him go,
Lots of tough calls throughout this exchange and certainly Krasikov was one of the tougher calls leaders had to make,
I don't think anybody here on the US side has a full, complete, contextual picture of why Krasikov was treated with the priority that he was by the Russian side,
a senior administration official told Fox News This deal would not have been made possible without our allies Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey. They all stepped up and they stood with us,
Biden said at the White House Thursday And let the traitors now feverishly adopt new names and actively disguise themselves under witness protection programs,
Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel