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(Reuters) -Russia and Ukraine carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war on Friday, each side bringing home 95 prisoners in an agreement in which the United Arab Emirates acted as mediator. Russia’s Defence Ministry, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, said the returning Russian service members were undergoing medical checks in Belarus, one of Russia’s closest allies in the more than 2-1/2-year-old war. Video posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Telegram […]
By Andrew Osborn, Filipp Lebedev, Lucy Papachristou and Trevor Hunnicutt MOSCOW/ANKARA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russia freed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan on Thursday as part of the biggest prisoner exchange of its kind since the end of the Cold War. The White House said the U.S. had negotiated the trade with Russia, Germany and three other countries. The deal, negotiated in secrecy for more than a year, involved 24 prisoners, including 16 moving […]
By Ramin KHANIZADEH, Payam DOOST MOHAMADI TEHRAN, June 15, 2024 (AFP) – Iran and Sweden announced on Saturday a prisoner exchange that saw a former Iranian official jailed in Sweden freed as Stockholm said Tehran had released a European Union diplomat and a second Swede. “Hamid Noury, who has been in illegal detention in Sweden since 2019, is free and will return to the country in a few hours,” Kazem Gharibabadi, head of Iran’s High […]
NEW YORK, Sept 18, 2023 (AFP) – President Joe Biden said the United States would keep piling “costs” on Iran despite a prisoner swap deal that freed five Americans on Monday. Biden confirmed that he was imposing new sanctions on Iran’s intelligence ministry and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their involvement in “wrongful detentions.” “Today, five innocent Americans who were imprisoned in Iran are finally coming home,” Biden said in a statement. Biden said that […]
Moscow, Russia (AFP) Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was freed in a prisoner swap with US basketball star Brittney Griner, told Kremlin-run media on Friday that Western countries are seeking to “destroy” and “divide” Russia. “The West believes that they did not finish us off in 1990, when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate… They think that they can just destroy us again and divide Russia,” he told state-run channel RT, known previously as […]
Moscow, Russia (AFP) Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer who was released as a result of a US prisoner swap, arrived in Russia on Thursday, state television said. “Don’t worry, everything is OK, I love you very much,” he told his mother Raisa in comments broadcast by state television. He spoke to his family when his plane made a refuelling stop in Russia. In footage broadcast on state television, Bout was shown boarding a plane […]
Moscow, Russia (AFP) Russia said Friday that its ties with the United States were still in “crisis” despite a prisoner swap involving US basketball star Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Tensions between Moscow and Washington have soared in recent months over a range of issues, peaking after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into pro-Western Ukraine. “It is probably wrong to draw any hypothetical conclusions that this could be a step towards […]
Moscow, Russia (AFP) Moscow confirmed Thursday it had exchanged US basketball star Brittney Griner, who had been jailed in Russia, for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in the United States. “On December 8, 2022, at the Abu Dhabi airport, the exchange of Russian citizen Viktor Bout for US citizen Brittney Griner… was successfully completed,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. Moscow said it had been negotiating with Washington […]
Washington, United States (AFP) President Joe Biden said Thursday that US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner is “on her way home” after Moscow reported she had been exchanged in a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Victor Bout. The US athlete, who was being held in a remote Russian penal colony, was arrested at a Moscow airport in February and handed nine years in prison in August for possessing vape cartridges with a small quantity of […]
Moscow, Russia | AFP | Russia is moving US basketball star Brittney Griner to a penal colony after she lost an appeal against a drug conviction, her lawyers said Wednesday, drawing a sharp rebuke from the White House. Griner, who has been jailed for nine years for possession of a small quantity of cannabis oil, was transferred out of a detention centre on November 4, her legal team said. She “is now on her […]
by Ania Tsoukanova Agence France Presse KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Ukraine on Wednesday announced the exchange of a record-high 215 imprisoned soldiers with Russia, including fighters who led the defence of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks that became an icon of Ukrainian resistance. Russia received 55 prisoners including Viktor Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin accused of high treason, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address. The swap […]
Russia and the United States swapped prisoners Wednesday despite fierce tensions over Ukraine, with Moscow handing over a jailed ex-Marine in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug smuggling. Trevor Reed, a 30-year-old from Texas who was jailed in Russia in 2020, was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, 53, who had been serving a 20-year US prison sentence since 2011. In footage shown on Russian state television, Yaroshenko emerged from a US plane onto a […]
