Russia frees French political scholar in a prisoner swap for a basketball player

Laurent Vinatier, a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in Russia and facing new charges of espionage, has been freed in a prisoner swap with France, a Russian security agency said Thursday. In exchange, Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, jailed in France and whose extradition was demanded by the United States, was released and returned to Russia on Thursday, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement. Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024.