Putin greets Russians returning to Moscow after prisoner swap, news agencies say

(Reuters) – Russian nationals involved in a complex swap of prisoners with Western countries arrived in Moscow late on Thursday and were met at the airport by President Vladimir Putin, Russian news agencies reported.

The agencies quoted Putin as saying that the eight returnees would all be presented with state awards and that he told them that their homeland “had not forgotten them, not for a single minute”.

Also meeting the returnees, according to the agencies, were the head of the FSB intelligence service, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, and Defence Minister Andrei Belousov.

The eight returnees included Vadim Krasikov, convicted by a German court of killing a Chechen dissident in Berlin, and two men convicted of cyber crimes in the United States, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznev.

Two minors were also among the returnees.