The Russian presidency (Kremlin) considered this Friday that the negotiations between Russia and the United States that led to an exchange of prisoners cannot be considered as an improvement in relations between the two countries.
“These negotiations dealt exclusively with the subject of the exchange [de prisioneiros]so it is wrong to draw hypothetical conclusions that this could be a step towards overcoming the crisis we are currently experiencing in bilateral relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Izvestia newspaper.
“Bilateral relations remain in a sorry state,” he added.
Russia and the United States exchanged American basketball player Brittney Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor But at Abu Dhabi airport on Thursday.
The administration of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, authorized the return to Russia of Viktor Bout, a known arms dealer who was about to serve a sentence of 25 years in prison in the United States alone, to obtain the return by Moscow of the athlete from 32 years.
Griner, who won two Olympic gold medals for the United States, was arrested in February at the Moscow airport for alleged possession of drugs and, in August, sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.
The agreement was reached after several months of negotiations with the Russian presidency, at a time when relations between the two countries are even more tense and deteriorated due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The case divided public opposition in the United States, mainly over the possible release of Viktor Bout, a former colonel in the Russian army, convicted of selling millions of dollars worth of weapons on US soil, which would be used to attack the country. .
The Kremlin spokesman confirmed that Bout arrived at his home in Moscow on Thursday night and, according to the official TASS news agency, he is exhausted after three days without sleep, but grateful for the good treatment he received from the agents. Americans who transferred him to Abu. Dabi.
Peskov, who declined to disclose details of the exchange as well as the involvement of the two countries’ special services, said the Kremlin wanted a “quick recovery.”
“The most important thing is that a Russian citizen, deprived of his liberty in the US for 14 years, after an absolutely illegal detention, has returned home,” he stressed.
Source: TSF
