The Russians want him, the Americans won’t let him go, and in the meantime, Bout has lots of time to think about where he has the best chance for survival
President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a lot to talk about in their three-hour meeting last month in Switzerland. They chatted about the capitalistic rights of Russian hackers to demand ransoms from American infrastructure companies; they spoke about Russia’s security needs and why that requires the country to invade half of Ukraine; they discussed the future of Alexei Navalny, who somehow found himself in a Siberian prison for the next two lifetimes. Even polar bears somehow made it into the conversation, when Putin raised the issue of control over quarries concealed beneath the arctic ice sheet. It was interesting.
But Putin saved his best shot for the last.
“What do you think,” he casually asked the American president toward the end of the summit, “about doing a prisoner exchange, you and I?”
“Do you have someone specific in mind?” Biden asked, equally casually.
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