No agreement "yet" on prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States
Moscow confirmed Thursday that it had held prisoner exchange talks with Washington that did not lead to a concrete agreement "so far," and it is noteworthy that the deal may include Russia's notorious arms smuggler.
The ongoing talks are one of the few areas in which Moscow and Washington are maintaining dialogue after their relations were rocked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of Western sanctions on Moscow.
Russia and the United States have held one prisoner exchange since Russia invaded Ukraine.
In April, Russia released ex-Marine Trevor Reed in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted drug smuggler in the United States.
"No concrete result has been reached yet," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement issued Thursday, referring to the ongoing talks.
Zakharova added that Moscow hopes that the "interests of both parties" will be taken into account.
And US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced Wednesday that Washington had made a "substantial proposal" to Moscow for the release of basketball star Britney Greiner and former Marine Paul Whelan.
Blinken declined to confirm reports that the United States was offering to trade Americans for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
"I have nothing to add because there are no final agreements," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Blinken confirmed that he will speak with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov "in the coming days" in their first phone call since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Butt, 55, is the most famous Russian prisoner in the United States.
Serving a 25-year prison sentence, he inspired the 2005 film Lord of War, starring Nicolas Cage.
Former British minister Peter Heine called Butt "the Merchant of Death" for supplying war-torn Angola and Liberia with weapons.
"Victor knows nothing about the negotiations between Russia and the United States on his exchange," his wife, Alla, told the official RIA Novosti news agency late Wednesday.
"Of course, we assume that such negotiations can take place, but we are not talking about them because neither he nor I have any information," she added.
Bout has been accused for decades of selling weapons to tyrants in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts.
The multilingual former Soviet Air Force officer was convicted in 2011 of conspiring to sell weapons to FARC rebels in Colombia after he was arrested in Thailand in a US operation.
In addition, Whelan, a security official at an auto parts company, was arrested in Moscow and sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison for espionage, which he denies.
Grayner, the two-time NBA star and gold medalist, was arrested in Russia just days before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The 31-year-old has pleaded guilty to drug possession.
She is currently on trial and faces up to ten years in prison.
Greiner's defense team said it learned of the US exchange offer from news reports.
"The defense team is not participating in the exchange talks," said attorney Maria Blagovolina.
She stressed that from a legal point of view, the exchange would be possible after the court reached a ruling, expressing her hope that the American athlete would return to the homeland "soon."
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