Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it handed over Eston Kohver, an Estonian security officer detained by Russia previous year, in exchange for Alexei Dressen – a former Estonian official serving a 16-year jail term for being a Russian spy.
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The ministry and the ISS is now holding a press conference in Tartu, attended by Pevkur, ISS chief Arnold Sinisalu, and Kohver himself.
He was swapped for Aleksei Dressen, who was imprisoned in Estonia in 2012 on charges of spying for Moscow.
Two border checkpoints were closed during the procedure.
MOSCOW/TALLINN Russian Federation and Estonia exchanged two men accused of espionage at a remote border post on Saturday in an episode reminiscent of a Cold War spy thriller that follows heightened tensions between the neighbours.
Kohver’s defense lawyer, Mark Feigin, said the swap was “organized on the political level” and was timed to boost Russia’s image ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s speech to the UN General Assembly on September 28. He was sentenced last month in Russian Federation to 15 years for spying.
Kohver’s case provoked a diplomatic row, with Estonia and the European Union insisting he was abducted from Estonian soil, a charge Russian Federation denied.
In a tweet, Feigin wrote: “It’s all happening ahead of Putin’s visit to the United Nations tomorrow”. He was sentenced to 16 years for treason. A suspended sentence with a five-year probation period was given to his wife Victoria Dressen who was helping her husband and was detained in the Tallinn airport with electronic media containing secret data before taking a flight to Moscow.
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“I thank Eston for not giving up at this hard time”, Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas said in a statement.
