WASHINGTON, July 31 Arkady Bukh, a lawyer for Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, said he could not comment on rumors about an alleged prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States «until something happens,» while refusing to disclose information about the current location of his client.
«The information is confidential at this stage; it cannot be disclosed until something happens… We are always open to negotiations about an exchange. We cannot disclose details, but we are working on it,» Bukh said.
He added that he could not disclose detailed information about the process «until the exchange takes place.» When asked where Alexander Vinnik is now, the lawyer replied that he «cannot disclose this.»
«I do not represent prisoners in Russia, but they are on their way. This is what my colleagues who represent individuals arrested by Russian authorities told me,» Bukh summed up.
Earlier, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that the Kremlin does not comment on the topic of preparations for a possible prisoner exchange. The Russian embassy in Washington also said that it does not comment on speculation about an alleged prisoner exchange being prepared between Russia and the United States.
As of Wednesday morning, data on a number of Russian citizens serving sentences, whose criminal cases were widely covered in both the American and Russian press, had disappeared from the electronic database of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. This includes Russians Alexander Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenko and Vladislav Klyushin, who were previously convicted in the United States, but has not yielded any results.
has asked the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the US State Department for clarification on this matter, but has not yet received any official comment.