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The developments come after a whirlwind weekend of diplomacy from Trump where he told reporters on Saturday that he was 'absolutely' considering imposing new sanctions on Russia. The next day, Trump launched into a blistering attack on Putin where he said the Russian leader has gone 'absolutely crazy.' Trump condemned the Russians for escalating their strikes on Ukraine while negotiations were ongoing, which he said was resulting in the 'needless killing of a lot of people.' In a chilling warning about the future of the former Soviet nation if the bloodshed continues, Trump said Putin's war 'will lead to the...

Russia has handed Ukraine a list of 1,000 prisoners of war it wants Kyiv to return in a forthcoming exchange deal, the Kremlin said on Thursday, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Ukrainian military intelligence told Reuters on Thursday that it had submitted its corresponding list. Russian state media outlet Interfax reported. An agreement to conduct such an exchange was reached earlier this month in Istanbul during the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years.

The United States and Russia exchanged prisoners in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, as Washington and Moscow edge toward a diplomatic rapprochement. Russia released Ksenia Karelina, a U.S.-Russian dual national, who was found guilty in Russia for donating a small sum to a U.S.-based Ukrainian charity and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Karelina, a former ballet dancer, became a U.S. citizen in 2021 after marrying an American and moving to Los Angeles. In exchange, the U.S. freed Artur Petrov, a German-Russian dual citizen who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of U.S. authorities for allegedly exporting...

Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was released from Kremlin custody in a prisoner swap with the United States on Thursday morning. Karelina was freed in exchange for German-Russian Arthur Petrov at a swap in Abu Dhabi, the Wall Street Journal reported. “American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,” he added. The dual-citizen spa worker was accused of treason against the Russian government...

The White House confirmed that Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping discussed Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou with President Joe Biden days before she was released on Friday.“It should not come at no surprise that President Xi raised the Huawei official,” Psaki said. “But again there was no negation on this call.”The call between Biden and Xi took place September 9 and lasted an hour and a half, according to Biden.The Biden Justice Department dropped charges against Wanzhou, setting her free from house arrest in Vancouver. Wanzhou was arrested in Canada in 2018 during the Trump administration on charges she violated...

-snip- Fogel was released into the custody of Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who made an unannounced stop in Moscow on Tuesday to pick him up. The Washington Post said that according to Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity, Witkoff, a real estate developer and longtime friend of Trump, had a three-and-a-half hour meeting with Putin. Peskov said he had "nothing to say" on that.

Investor’s Business Daily has put together facts to demonstrate that the release of Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captivity was just a ruse to provide cover for President Obama to release the Taliban commanders, a goal he had long pursued. Here is the timeline they provide: January 2009: Obama signs executive order calling for Gitmo to be shuttered within a year, while his national security team considers if five Taliban leaders are safe for release. 2011: White House and State Department officials open secret talks with the Taliban in Germany and the Persian Gulf to discuss their release from Gitmo...

Well, he’s back, folks. Bowe Bergdahl wants to appeal his desertion conviction because—you guessed it—Donald Trump is no longer president. Bergdahl claims the former president’s rhetoric prevented him from having a fair trial. The case stems back when Bergdahl abandoned his post in Afghanistan 12 years ago, which led to his capture by the Taliban. They held him for five years. Katie covered this fiasco of a story, noting that six US servicemen were killed trying to look for him. He was released in 2014 in a prisoner exchange, where we got this deserter for the price of releasing five...

Four top members of the Taliban's new interim government are former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were freed by the Obama administration in a prisoner exchange for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl. The four new officials were members of the hardline 'Guantanamo Five' who were traded to free Bergdahl from the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in 2014. The Taliban on Tuesday announced the appointment of Acting Director of Intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, Acting Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs Norullah Noori, Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Fazl, and Acting Minister of Information and Culture Khairullah Khairkhah. The four men, who also took part in...

President Biden pardoned two Chinese spies and the relative of a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party who was caught with tens of thousands of images of child pornography on his computer last month in a prisoner swap between the two countries that was made public Thursday when the three received clemencies. Yanjun Xu and Ji Chaoqun, who were both convicted of espionage, were granted clemency last month, along with Shanlin Jin, who was convicted of possession of more than 47,000 images of child pornography while a doctoral student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 2021. Five days...

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administation called the “largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.” But it’s not Thursday’s set of commutations that have caught the attention of concerned Americans — it’s those that were quietly given weeks ago to Chinese spies.X user Nick Sortor posted that “Joe Biden just pardoned multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child p*rnography. WHY?”But the thing is, Biden didn’t “just” commute the sentences for these criminals — he did it quietly only days before Thanksgiving.While most Americans...

Family members of an American woman and Canadian man who went missing in Afghanistan in 2012 have released videos showing the couple captive. Caitlan Coleman, sat next to Joshua Boyle, appeals to "my president, Barack Obama" for help. The videos were emailed to Ms Coleman's family by an Afghan man months after she and Mr Boyle went missing. The families of the captive couple said they decided to make the videos public because of Bowe Bergdahl's release. They said their were disappointed the two were not freed as part of a prisoner swap deal that led to US soldier, Sgt...

Saab was charged with money laundering in the US One of President Nicolás Maduro's closest aides has been extradited from Cape Verde to the United States, where he's been charged with money laundering. The US Treasury says Alex Saab worked as a front man for Mr Maduro's regime. The Venezuelan government suspended talks soon afterwards with the US-backed opposition. The talks were to resolve a political crisis that has led to violence and the collapse of the economy

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Saturday night responded to reports that US President Joe Biden expressed deep frustration at Netanyahu's management of the ceasefire-prisoner swap deal. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not discuss what was said in closed conversations with the President of the US," the statement said. "He does not interfere in American politics, and will work with whoever is elected president - just as he expects from the Americans not to interfere in Israeli politics." ....Biden even told Netanyahu, "Stop bullsh[!]tting me!" When Netanyahu responded, "We are progressing with the negotiations" and promised that "a delegation...

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva—the three prisoners recently freed by Russia—as they arrived at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Thursday. After greeting the freed prisoners, Biden and Harris addressed the media on the tarmac. Following the address, Biden was seen walking back onto the plane that had transported the prisoners, a moment that quickly went viral on social media. Critics seized on the footage, questioning Biden's awareness and fitness for the presidency. Comments flooded social media, with one user on X saying, "He definitely forgot where he was."...

With the exchange complete, details can now be revealed that show just how close a swap along similar lines but including Navalny appeared to be back in February... A detailed investigation by the Wall Street Journal into the behind-the-scenes negotiations over the exchange described how its origins lay in a meeting in Geneva between the Russian and US leaders shortly after Joe Biden became president, long before Gershkovich’s arrest. There, Vladimir Putin suggested setting up a special channel to deal with prisoner swaps, an echo of a cold war practice. Biden agreed. Eventually, it led to Russia releasing the basketball...

The Harris-Biden administration is a boon to Putin. A Trump presidency will destroy all that. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelen, both of whom have been languishing in the Soviet, I mean, Russian prisons for years on trumped-up espionage charges, have been released. It appears that their release is part of a larger, multi-nation prisoner swap that includes the exchange of prisoners from Germany, Great Britain, the US, and Slovenia on the one side and Russia and Belarus on the other. The basis for the suspicion about the multi-national, multi-prisoner release is the sudden...

President Joe Biden celebrated the end of the 'brutal ordeal' for Americans 'imprisoned unjustly' inside Russia as he announced a complex prisoner swap and then led a rendition of 'happy birthday' to the teen daughter of a freed prisoner. Biden made a surprise appearance inside the State Dining Room at the White House hours after the historic deal that freed American ex-Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. All were held inside Russia, Whelan since 2018, for 'no legitimate reason whatsoever - none,' Biden said. 'And now they're brutal ordeal is over and they're free.

American Paul Whelan said he is "extremely concerned about being left behind" in Russia again, as the Biden administration looks to cut a deal with the Kremlin to release U.S. detainees. In one of several phone calls over the Christmas holiday, Whelan told WTOP that the Russians are "adamant" about doing "one-for-one exchanges," which he worries will result in Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich's release and not his own. "At this point, the five-year mark, I'm extremely concerned about being left behind a third time," Whelan said. "I'm concerned that the Biden administration will work out a deal for...

President Joe Biden greenlit the release of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, accused of acting as Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s top money launderer, on Wednesday. Saab’s release is allegedly the result of a prisoner swap with the rogue socialist regime that will also allow for the release of unjustly detained Americans in Venezuela, the Associated Press reported. Saab, 51, is a close personal ally of Maduro and is widely considered the socialist dictator’s financial brain. American law enforcement authorities arrested Saab in Cape Verde in 2020 after the Department of Justice indicted him in 2019 on charges of laundering $350...