U.S. Ally Could Hand Biden New Trump Card for Dealing with Putin

Brazil has hit alleged Russian spy Sergey Cherkasov with new charges, a move which could potentially hand President Joe Biden a bargaining chip for dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Cherkasov is currently serving a five-year prison term in Brazil for document forgery. Authorities say that Cherkasov, who spent nearly a decade building a fake identity under the alias Victor Muller Ferreira, is a spy for the Russian military intelligence, GRU.

On Sunday, g1, a Brazilian news portal, reported that Cherkasov had been hit with new money laundering charges. The latest charges could block his potential extradition to Russia, according to Agentstvo, a Russian investigative site, which reported Wednesday that according to local laws, a prisoner can qualify for early release if they have spent a sixth of their sentence in prison.

With Cherkasov's extradition to Russia potentially disrupted, the U.S., an ally of Brazil, could use him in a future prisoner swap in exchange for detained U.S. citizens in Russia, such as The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine and computer security official Paul Whelan, David Haas, a criminal justice attorney in Orlando, Florida, told Newsweek.

CNN reported in May 2023, citing three sources familiar with the matter, that the Biden administration has been approaching its allies who have Russian spies in custody to gauge whether they would be willing to make a trade as part of a larger prisoner swap package.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

Cherkasov was admitted to Johns Hopkins University's graduate school in Washington D.C. in 2018, pretending to be the son of a deceased Brazilian national. He was close to gaining a position at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands after he graduated.

An FBI affidavit states that in his two years in Washington, Cherkasov filed reports to the GRU on how senior Biden administration officials were responding to the build-up of Russia's military near the Ukrainian border before Putin launched his full-scale invasion of the neighboring country on February 2022.

Authorities in the Netherlands denied Cherkasov entry and he was put on a plane back to Brazil, where he was arrested when the aircraft landed.

The Kremlin has confirmed that Cherkasov is a Russian citizen, and has requested his extradition from Brazil, as has the U.S., who has charged him with acting as an agent of a foreign power, visa fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and other charges.

The U.S. previously requested his extradition, but that decision was blocked by Brazilian authorities in July 2023, who said that Washington's request was without grounds as Brazil's Supreme Court had already approved Cherkasov's extradition to Russia, the U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported at the time.

Orlando attorney Haas told Newsweek that prisoner swaps or transfers are not necessarily extradition requests, so Cherkasov could be a bargaining chip "depending on the relationships." A three-way exchange "is possible on the diplomatic level," he said.

"So it would be possible for him to avoid U.S. soil as part of a larger exchange process," added Haas.

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