Prisoner exchange: Kevin Lick, freed from Russia, wants to repeat his high school diploma

German-Russian Kevin Lick, who was released from Russian custody, says he only found out on the way to the airport that there was a prisoner exchange. “Nothing was said,” reported the 19-year-old, who speaks German and Russian, in Bonn. Before that, all of the people taking part in the exchange were taken to a prison in Moscow, he said. He is one of five men with German citizenship who were released as part of the West’s major prisoner exchange with Moscow.

Lick said he was sent to a Russian prison camp when he was 17 years old. He was in solitary confinement. He was accused of espionage, reported the 1.92 meter tall, thin young man, who was still wearing the black prison camp clothing the day after his arrival in Germany.

When he met Chancellor Olaf Scholz at Cologne/Bonn Airport, he told the politician that he was very grateful to him for getting him out, he said. His mother was still in Russia and he hoped to see her soon.

“Of course I have plans,” said the 19-year-old, “I had no opportunity to finish school and I definitely want to get my high school diploma,” said Lick, who has short hair and weighs just 70 kilograms. When he was arrested, he was in the tenth grade. “I am very motivated to finish school.” He grew up in Montabaur and came to Russia when he was twelve. And he wants to study.

Lick had attended the press conference of the Russian opposition members Vladimir Kara-Mursa, Ilya Yashin and Andrei Pivovarov, who had also been released, in the Deutsche Welle building in Bonn. The young man reported that he, like them, was being held in a hospital.