RUSSIA said Wednesday it had presented its ideas for a prisoner swap to the United States and was waiting for a response, days before it was set to put US reporter Evan Gershkovich on trial.
Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges rejected as false by his family, employer and the White House.
President Vladimir Putin said in February that talks on a prisoner swap involving the journalist were under way, but the Kremlin has not given any details on the progress of the negotiations.
“The ball is in the court of the United States, we are waiting for them to respond to the ideas that were presented to them,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia’s state TASS news agency in an interview.
“They are well known to the relevant parts of the US administration. I understand that, perhaps, something in these ideas does not suit the Americans. That’s their problem,” he added.
“We consider our approaches to be fully justified, sensible, balanced. We expect that this is how they will view them.”
Gershkovich is set to face a closed-door trial in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on June 26 and could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
He became the first Western journalist to be jailed on espionage charges since the Soviet era.
Gershkovich is one of several Americans held in Russia.
A court in Russia’s far east on Wednesday jailed a US soldier for three years and nine months after convicting him for having threatened to kill his girlfriend and for stealing from her.
Gordon Black, 34, was arrested last month in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, where he was visiting a Russian woman he met and dated while serving in South Korea.
