MOSCOW – Despite a prisoner swap involving US basketball star Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, Russia said Friday that its relations with the US were still in “crisis.”
Tensions between Moscow and Washington have risen in recent months over a variety of topics, reaching a climax after President Vladimir Putin dispatched troops to pro-Western Ukraine.
“It is probably incorrect to make any speculative conclusions that this may be a step toward addressing the crisis that we now have in bilateral ties,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper Izvestia.
Ties “remain in a poor situation,” he added, adding that conversations with US authorities allowed “a Russian citizen, who was practically held captive by the Americans for 14 years… to be released.” to return to his homeland.”
Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of Death,” was released Thursday in an Abu Dhabi prisoner swap with WNBA star Griner, 32, who was imprisoned in Russia for carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.
Bout, 55, is accused of arming insurgents in some of the world’s most bloody conflicts.
He was apprehended in an American sting operation in Thailand in 2008, extradited to the US, and sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2012.
Source: AFP