Kremlin-Prisoner Exchange Does Not Indicate Deal Possible w/Ukraine

Wires carrying comments from Kremlin spox Dmitry Peskov regarding the high-profile prisoner swap deal involving Russia, the US and a number of European nations on 1 August. Confirms that the exchange was negotiated between Russia's FSB security service and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When asked if the prisoner exchange might mean a compromise on Ukraine is possible - intimating that the US and Russia being able to reach a deal on prisoners could bode well for Russia and Ukraine reaching a deal on a ceasefire - Peskov says 'the situation is different'. Says 'work in that direction is being carried out in a different way based on different principles.'

• Says that the idea Russia deliberately arrested people to create an 'exchange fund' (i.e. a stock of people it could use as effective hostages to exchange for its own captured agents) is 'absurd'.
• Bloomberg notes, "[Putin] extracted an assassin and seven undercover agents from American and European prisons by demonstrating his willingness to pile up hostages in jail until US President Joe Biden gave him the deal he sought. The Russian president showed his spies abroad that silence and loyalty will be rewarded if they’re caught. And he reveled in casting Germany and other US allies as secondary actors in the main negotiation between Moscow and Washington."