The US-Russia prisoner swap deal is a victory for President Vladimir Putin, US presidential candidate Donald Trump told Fox Business.
"As usual, it was a win for Putin or any other country that deals with us, but we got someone back, so I will never dispute that," he said.
In his words, Moscow "made a great deal", a "phenomenal deal", while for the US it is "bad".
Trump said that if he had been president, one of the prisoners returned to the US, The Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, would not have been imprisoned in Russia and would have been returned.
The Republican acknowledged that the deal involved not just a swap, but a payment, but noted that he "had no idea" how the agreement was reached.
He recalled the "last time" the US paid $6 billion in such an exchange, referring to last year's deal with Iran.
"We wouldn't have to pay anything. We wouldn't have to release some of the world's biggest killers because, as you know, that's exactly what happened.
And the deal is very complicated," Trump noted.
On August 1, Russia, the United States, Belarus, Germany, Slovenia and Norway conducted an unprecedented prisoner exchange in modern history. 26 people participated in it. The exchange took place in the Turkish capital Ankara.