Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) worked on exchanging Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout, Vladimir Putin has said
The Kremlin is not ruling out further prisoner swaps with the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Friday. Contacts between the security services of the two nations are “ongoing,” Putin said, adding that any further such actions would be an outcome of these negotiations.
The president was speaking in the wake of a prisoner swap that saw women’s basketball star Brittney Griner exchanged for jailed Russian businessman Viktor Bout on Thursday. According to Putin, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had engaged in the talks on the swap deal on Russia’s behalf.
“Are further prisoner exchanges possible? Everything is possible,” Putin said, talking to a press conference at a Eurasian Economic Union summit in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
“Contacts are ongoing,” the Russian leader said, adding that Russian and American security services have never stopped talking to each other. Swapping Griner for Bout has “come as a result of the talks and the search for a compromise,” Putin said, adding that “this time, a compromise was reached.”
Russia “is not giving up on continuing this work in the future,” the president said.
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