The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation announces that the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation and the US Central Intelligence Agency, fulfilling order of the leaders of their countries and proceeding from humanitarian considerations and the principles of constructive partnership, carried out in accordance with Russian and US national legislations the return to the Russian Federation of ten Russian citizens accused in the United States, with the simultaneous transfer to the United States of four persons previously convicted in the Russian Federation.

This action was carried out in the general context of improving Russian-US relations and giving them a new dynamic in the spirit of the agreements in principle at the highest level between Moscow and Washington on the strategic nature of Russian-US partnership.

This arrangement gives reason to expect that the course agreed upon by the leaderships of Russia and the United States will be consistently implemented in practice and that attempts to lead the parties astray from this course will not succeed.

July 9, 2010