As part of the exchange, Poland did release Pavel Rubtsov — also known as Pablo Gonzales, a Spanish-Russian journalist. He had been arrested in February 2022 near the border with Ukraine and was accused of being a Russian intelligence agent.
Mariusz Kamiński, the former coordinator of special services under the past PiS administration, wrote on X that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government “gave away their most valuable agent to the Russians without getting anything in return.”
Whether Poland received any direct quid pro quo is unclear; however, the U.S. is one of Poland’s closest political and military allies.
In Germany, human rights organizations and opposition politicians argued that freeing a convicted murderer in exchange for political prisoners provides extra leverage to the Russian regime.
“This could set a precedent,” Roderich Kiesewetter, a senior defense politician from the opposition party Christian Democratic Union, told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook. “I fear that the risk of sabotage or terrorism by Russia will increase,” he said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown his henchmen have no reason to fear consequences.
The German government did not commute Krasikov’s sentence. Rather, in a historic first, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann instructed the public prosecutor to suspend Krasikov’s sentence for deportation — meaning he could be immediately arrested if he reentered Germany, a spokesperson from the justice ministry said.
