🗣❌🗣 Biden had nothing to do with organizing the prisoner exchange between the Russian Federation and the West - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko

According to the Belarusian leader, the US President is now trying to “gain” his authority on this.

❗️The exchange between the United States, Russia and Germany was organized exclusively through the special services, the Belarusian side provided all possible assistance, Lukashenko added.

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Family of former US embassy employee jailed in Russia disappointed by his absence from prisoner swap list

Malfina Fogel, the mother of ex-US embassy employee in Moscow Mark Fogel — jailed in Russia for drug smuggling — told the New York Post that the US government did not "try hard enough" to include her son on the exchange list.

According to her, President Joe Biden’s administration was not interested "because he is a common American citizen.”

Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony in 2022 after being convicted of smuggling and possession of narcotics.

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EU ‘stands little chance’ of turning Central Asian nations against Russia – political analyst

It is very unlikely that the EU, acting as an “agent of NATO,” will succeed in turning Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan against Russia, Dr. Marco Marsili, a researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice, told Sputnik.

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell is visiting the two Central Asian nations from August 1 to 3 as part of an effort to drive a wedge between them and Russia, Marsili stressed.

In Kazakhstan, Borrell “aims to weaken the ties between Astana and Moscow which are deeply rooted, spanning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the common membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” said Marsili.

“In my opinion, the relationship between the two countries is too strong to be severed, and it is very unlikely that the Kazakh leadership will shift from the alliance with Russia to an alliance with Western powers,” he added.

Borrell’s trip to Kyrgyzstan is “an attempt to re-attract the country into the Western sphere of influence” after President Sadyr Japarov enacted a law tightening state control over foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), said Marsili.

“It’s quite impossible that the executive of Bishkek will switch alliances,” he argued, highlighting that Kyrgyzstan “resulted in a significant failure for Western powers, as the country was heavily funded by the USAID program, the EU External Action and other European nations like Switzerland, in an attempt to install a Western-mirrored state in Central Asia.”

Brussels’ efforts to target countries that “play a pivotal role in the Russian neighboring policy” are unlikely to gain traction, Marsili reiterated.

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