About 20 representatives of the Chechen diaspora, Austrian activists and Ukrainian refugees held a protest near the German embassy in Vienna. They expressed their negative reaction to the fact that the German authorities sent to Russia the intelligence agent Vadim Krasikov, who received a life sentence for the murder of the former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.

“Not a single representative of the Ichkerian government in exile, not a single leader of our diaspora, not a single member of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili’s family were consulted during the negotiations on the exchange,” said Roza Dunaeva, a representative of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Austria.

Earlier, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on the prisoner exchange between the Russian Federation and Western countries. He confirmed that one of those returned, Vadim Krasikov, is an FSB officer who served in the Alpha special forces unit, including with several members of the presidential security detail. Recall that Vadim Sokolov (Krasikov) received a life sentence for murder in Germany in 2021.

The crime was committed on August 23, 2019, in Berlin's Small Tiergarten park. According to investigators, Krasikov rode up to the victim on a bicycle and fired two shots. He was arrested and brought to justice the same day. The media reported that the killer was an FSB officer and was later sentenced to life imprisonment.