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The Economist
The Economist
2 Aug 2024


NextImg:Some Germans think the hostage exchange with Russia was a dirty deal
Europe | The grubby price of freedom

Some Germans think the hostage exchange with Russia was a dirty deal

But preserving good relations with America was more important

|Berlin

AGREEING TO free a convicted murderer was “not easy” said Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, with typical understatement. Germany would probably have preferred to play no role in the complex, multi-country deal that saw the release of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, and 15 other prisoners from Russian and Belarusian jails. But it could not remain aloof, because Vladimir Putin was adamant about securing the release from German captivity of Vadim Krasikov, a hitman who in 2019 was sent by Russian security services to murder a Chechen exile in Berlin. Yesterday, after serving less than three years of a life sentence that he was given by a Berlin court in 2021, a tracksuited Mr Krasikov was greeted on the Moscow airport tarmac with a bearhug by Mr Putin himself.

The deal that freed Evan Gershkovich was more than a prisoner swap

It freed Russian prisoners of conscience as well as Westerners taken hostage by Vladimir Putin

The Olympics are teaching the French to cheer again

France’s politics is a mess, but the games are glorious


Humiliated by Azerbaijan, Armenia tacks towards the West

Courting the EU and America without alienating Russia is a difficult trick


Vienna’s social housing, lauded by progressives, pushes out the poor

The city’s most hard-up rely on the private sector

Will a new “pact” of ten laws help Europe ease its migrant woes?

It will require an extraordinary number of institutions to work together

Amid the bombs, Ukrainians rediscover the beach

Odessa gives itself permission to tan again