Russian authorities have released an American citizen detained on drug charges just hours before talks with the United States on Ukraine, according to the "New York Times".
Caleb Byers Wayne, 28, was arrested at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport on February 7 after a flight from Istanbul.
He was caught with a large amount of cannabis. Last week, a court in the Russian capital ordered Wayne to remain in pretrial detention for 30 days.
It is unclear whether his release is intended to ease tensions in the US-Russia talks ahead of the talks.
The American publication quoted a Kremlin spokesman as saying that the talks in Saudi Arabia would aim to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, "so that some events can be viewed in this context".
We recall that in recent weeks Russia and the US have begun exchanging prisoners.
Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, considered by the US to be a cybercrime boss, was released on February 13. This was done in exchange for the release from Moscow of American teacher Mark Fogle.
Fogle was sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug smuggling after being detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in August 2021 with 17 grams of marijuana in his luggage.
He was not included in the list for the major exchange carried out in August 2024 between the US and its Western allies, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. Then Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan were released from Russian prisons, as were Alsou Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Dieter Voronin, Kevin Leak, Rico Krieger, Patrick Schoebel, Herman Moyges, Lilia Chanisheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Vadim Ostanin, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Sasha Skochilenko.
In return, Russia returned eight people, the most important of whom was the former special services agent with a sentence in Germany, Vadim Krasikov.
As for the negotiations in Saudi Arabia, both Kiev and Europe were sidelined, causing alarm on the continent.
European leaders were left struggling to adjust to their new reality, in which they could not rely so much on the US for security and defense during the administration of Trump.
Kiev has already said it will not recognize the results.