Russia denies any concrete agreement with US in prisoner release case

Washington [US], July 28 (ANI)

Russia on Thursday said that no concrete agreement had been reached in prisoner release negotiations with the United States for releasing Viktor Bout in exchange for the release of US citizens Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.

This comes a day after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States has put a "substantial proposal on the table" to facilitate the release of US citizens Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, both held by Russia in what the US has termed "wrongful detention." The United States had offered Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death" in exchange for the release of US citizens Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, both held by Moscow.

"There are no agreements yet which are finalized," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said as quoted by The Washington Post.

"It is known that while discussing such issues information throw-ins are not normally made," Peskov said and mentioned that announcements are made about agreements that have been completed.

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, did not comment regarding the prisoner swap agreement on Thursday.

However, Zakharova reiterated that there had not been a "concrete result" in negotiations to free prisoners and said that the interest of Russia had to be taken into account along with the interests of the United States, the US-based publication reported.

Notably, Viktor Bout was given a 25-year prison sentence by the US in 2012.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US, for the first time, had confirmed that it had made proposals to Russia to release the American basketball star, Griner, who was detained for months in a drugs case and Whelan, sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges in 2016, The New York Times reported.

Blinken further said that he expected to talk with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov in the coming days and urged him to accept the proposal.

In February, the Russian authorities detained Brittney Griner on drug charges after finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage while she was at an airport near Moscow.

In Russia, she was stopped at an airport near Moscow and since then, her detention has been repeatedly extended. Griner's trial began on July 1 and she pleaded guilty. Her lawyers have argued that the star had a medical prescription for the hashish oil and mistakenly carried the drug into Russia.

"On December 28, 2018, a US citizen Paul Whelan was detained by officers from the Russian Federal Security Service during a spy action in Moscow," Sputnik quoted FSB's spokesperson as saying.