INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Sasha Skochilenko did not know what was happening as she was taken from her St
Petersburg artist, who was freed Thursday from a seven-year prison sentence for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war
I started asking where we were going and why
between Russia and the West.As the 12 freed Russian and German prisoners are being quarantined in a hospital in Germany until Sunday, they
release.t.me/yashin_russiaTheir friends and relatives have recounted the uncertain, frightening hours that preceded the news of their
release in one of the largest and most complicated prisoner swaps in history.Starting Monday, news emerged that several high-profile
followed, speculation grew that a major prisoner exchange was in the works
But friends, families and the prisoners themselves were kept in the dark.When asked about the widely anticipated prisoner swap on Wednesday,
an influential former official close to the Kremlin told The Moscow Times: "We'll announce it as it happens
There's no need to run ahead of the locomotive
I did not manage to find anything out for several days
about the exchange strictly confidential
From the prisoners themselves
From their lawyers and relatives
escorted on a commercial flight, officials chose to transport them by private and government planes to prevent their movements from being
publicly known, the source said.Another option being considered was taking the prisoners in regions close to Moscow to a meeting point by
ground transport.For the families and friends of the political prisoners from Russia who were freed on Thursday, the news came with a great
Petersburg when his prison sentence was originally set to end next month
But maybe all of this is for the better
Petersburg-based Bumaga news website.Sasha Skochilenko and Maria Pevcnikh.t.me/mariapevchikhThe parents of freed Navalny coordinator Ksenia
But we are ordinary citizens, not military, with no restrictions on entry or exit
the West appeared to have been equally caught off-guard.Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, who were sent to Russia with their children in the
deal, had been posing as an Argentine couple that ran an IT business and art gallery in Ljubljana."The children of the illegals who arrived
yesterday only found out they were Russian on the plane from Ankara
They do not speak Russian," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.As they stepped onto the tarmac in Moscow, Putin
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