Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been adamant that his country would not trade any territory in exchange for peace with Russia and Vladimir Putin, but recent remarks might be a sign that this blanket policy has changed.

A Russian Federal Bailiffs Service officer guards a corridor leading to a courtroom inside the court in Yekaterinburg, 18 July 2024
© AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky

In a rare public display of Russian secret agents, state television Russia-1 interviewed two former spies who returned to Moscow as part of the US-Russia prisoner swap.

Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva were posing as Argentinian citizens after settling in Slovenia in 2017. The duo reportedly used their residence in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, to travel to other NATO and EU member states.

In the interview, the Russian reporter presented a bag with stuffed toys to the children and asked their parents how to say “Cheburashka”, a character from Soviet and Russian cartoons, in Spanish.

Allegedly, the two children were not aware of their parents’ true identity and did not speak their native tongue.

In the interview, Dultseva explained how she similarly did not think or speak in Russian, and faced difficulty adopting the language back upon her return to Moscow.

The couple’s two teenage children lived in foster care after their parents’ arrest in 2022 and, according to Dultseva, were almost placed for adoption.

“We were threatened that the Argentinian side allegedly wanted to take our children. The children could be given to another family for adoption,” Dultseva said.

“But we felt that the Slovenian special services also did everything possible to keep the children in Slovenia to keep us together.”

Yashin: People’s support ‘my source of strength’

Meanwhile, one of the political activists released by the Kremlin, Ilya Yashin, thanked his supporters via a stream on his YouTube channel. He said he felt empowered after receiving around 30,000 letters and postcards and added: “it was literally my source of strength, because not a single day in prison did I feel abandoned, forgotten, or alone.”

The Russian activist previously admitted that he felt burdened by his release, as many of his comrades remain behind bars. Yashin spoke about the details of the prison swap and said that two more Russian dissidents should have been released as part of the deal.

“The Russian side deceived, betrayed their counterparts in the negotiations, leaving (Russian opposition activist Alexei) Gorinov and (associate of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Daniel) Kholodny actually hostage,” Yashin said.

Yashin was imprisoned in 2022 for criticising Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In his livestream, he vowed to stay committed to his anti-war position.

He added that he spoke to a German government official and warned, “if you allow Putin to devour Ukraine now, he will 100% move on. There are no illusions.”

Russia did not turn a corner, experts say

The prisoner swap between Russia and the West is the largest exchange since the Cold War, but the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Jodie Ginsberg, warned of the precedent it might set for future governments.

“Our concern is that this doesn’t set a precedent for future governments to feel that they can simply take innocent journalists, for example, imprison them and use them as bargaining chips for the release of, prisoners abroad.”

Ginsberg warns that the swap does not signify an improvement in press freedom in Russia. “This doesn’t mean that Russia has turned a corner or that Russia now suddenly has press freedom”.

She adds that the country was the fourth largest jailer of journalists worldwide in 2023, making it one of the most restrictive environments for journalists globally.