“Mr. Whelan is not discussed in such exchanges,” he told reporters, RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
On June 15, the Moscow City Court sentenced Whelan to 16 years in a maximum security colony. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was outraged by the sentence to the American, and called for his immediate release.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on Whelan’s possible exchange of Viktor Bout or Konstantin Yaroshenko convicted in the United States.