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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that more US-Russian prisoner swaps were possible if Moscow and Washington found a compromise.
Putin was speaking a day after Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was swapped for WNBA star and two-time Olympian Brittney Griner. Asked after a summit in Kyrgyzstan whether other prisoners could be exchanged, Putin replied that "anything is possible," noting that "a compromise has been found" that paved the way for an exchange of Griner for Bout on Thursday.
We do not refuse to continue this work in the future,” said the Russian leader, making his first comments on closely watched trade. Despite negotiating for the release of Griner, the most high-profile American imprisoned overseas, the US failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan.
The Michigan corporate security executive has been jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the US government say are baseless. US officials said they saw no immediate path to securing Whelan's release, saying Russia had treated his case differently because of the "false espionage" allegations against him. Even so, they said they believed channels of communication with Russia remained open for negotiations on its freedom.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: "We are listing what Putin said, let's see what he actually did." Putin said the US-Russia talks that resulted in Thursday's exchange did not touch on other topics.
Whether this can set the stage for dialogue with the US is a separate issue," he said. "We didn't set the task of moving from those talks to something else, but they created a certain atmosphere." On a similar note, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian and US intelligence agencies that agreed to trade Bout for Griner and their contacts were focused exclusively on finalizing specifics.
It doesn't have a depressing impact on the overall bilateral relationship," Peskov said in televised remarks. Peskov said that "special services can continue their work if necessary," and also noted the role of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in helping broker the exchange.
Peskov said that "special services can continue their work if necessary," and also noted the role of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in helping broker the exchange. Bout, nicknamed the "Death Trader" who provided weapons to some of the world's worst conflicts and spent more than 14 years behind bars in the US, is considered in Russia to be unjustly imprisoned after an overly aggressive US offensive operation.
Russian state media hailed his release, carrying footage of him talking to his family from a private jet after an exchange at Abu Dhabi airport and then hugging his wife and mother on a snowy tarmac in Moscow.
Speaking in an interview for channel RT with Maria Butina, who is also serving 18 months in a US prison after being found guilty of acting as a foreign agent who was not registered in the United States, Bout said she was still struggling to control her emotions after being imprisoned. He alleged that the West's long-held goal was to destroy Russia.
“The West believes they failed to finish us off when the Soviet Union started to collapse,” said Bout. "And our attempts to live independently, to become an independent force, took them by surprise."
