Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev has urged Western news organizations to withdraw any correspondents working in Russia, saying the value of having reporters there is outweighed by the risk of having them seized and used by the Kremlin as assets in future prisoner swaps.
"This is a period of time when information from Russia cannot be reported honestly," Grozev* told Bulgarian public broadcaster BNT in an interview released on August 10.
"Therefore, the added value of having your representative there is very small compared to the risk of our [journalistic] colleagues being arrested and simply becoming an asset in a [prisoner] swap fund for the future."
The remarks come after a major exchange of detained and imprisoned persons was conducted on August 1 between the United States, Germany, and other Western states on one side and Russia and Belarus on the other.
BNT, CNN, and others have reported that Grozev took part in preliminary negotiations on the prisoner exchange, actions he has indirectly confirmed in a series of interviews.
SEE ALSO: Kurmasheva, Gershkovich, Whelan Back In U.S. After Prisoner Swap With RussiaRussia got back eight prisoners held in the West, including a member of its Federal Security Service convicted of murder in Germany, and 16 people were released from Russian and Belarusian jails. They included journalists Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal and Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL, both U.S. citizens.
The 32-year-old Gershkovich was detained in Russia in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. He was sentenced in July to 16 years in prison on spying charges that were rejected by the United States and his WSJ employer.
Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old mother of two, was arrested in Kazan in October 2023 and first charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent" under a punitive Russian law that targets journalists, civil society activists, and others. She was subsequently charged with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military -- charges she and RFE/RL denied -- and sentenced to 6 1/2 years.
"The arrest of foreigners in Russia is planned," Grozev said.
SEE ALSO: Navalny's Widow Says He Should Have Been Released In Recent Prisoner Swap"It is planned with the aim to fill a [prisoner] swap fund. Our colleagues from The Wall Street Journal published an extensive investigation practically proving the arrest of Evan had been set up as a planned operation -- not the result of some alleged counterintelligence about him collecting secret information."
“They were planning to arrest someone with his status because they knew" it would become a major issue in the United States.
Grozev said the list of people considered for the prisoner swap changed over the years of negotiations.
“The original list was put together in early 2022. Of course, among the Russian opposition figures who needed to be released, the central figure was Aleksei Navalny."
“On the other side, the central figure was Putin's personal assassin, Vadim Krasikov. Four more people were added on both sides. The original list was five-on-five [prisoners to be exchanged]," he said.
Over the course of 2023, "both sides expanded [the list] to eight-on-eight. A large part of those eight by the Russian side were the same people who were eventually released -- of course, with the exception of Aleksei Navalny," who died in a remote Russian prison before the swap was finalized.
Grozev said Berlin held the most important "bargaining chip" for the Kremlin -- Krasikov, who had been sentenced to life in prison for murder.
The Germans were so angry about Navalny's death that they "bet it all on one card in the negotiations with Russia," Grozev explained.
"The Germans said: We are giving up the idea [of a prisoner swap] of one-on-one -- a symmetric swap. From now on, for our release of Vadim Krasikov, we want you to release practically all the big names held in Russian prisons -- the Russian opposition figures who have spoken up against the war [in Ukraine]."
"That is how the list changed -- six or seven names from the Russian opposition were added. I didn't take part in this last stage [of negotiations], but I know how it developed. The German government was really angry and was ready to drop any deal with Russia. But in the end, they managed to free more people than was actually considered possible at the beginning."