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They had been posing as Maria Mayer and Ludwig Gisch, an Argentinian couple living in Slovenia. She ran an online art gallery, and he had an IT business, but all the while, they were believed to be abusing the European Union’s Schengen free-movement zone to carry out intelligence tasks.

The couple pleaded guilty to charges of spying and falsifying documents last week at a Ljubljana regional court.

They were sentenced to more than a year and a half in prison, after which they would have been expelled from the country.

Shortly after their sentencing, Slovenian media outlets reported that the couple would be part of the prisoner swap, which at the time was in the final stages of negotiations.

Peskov said Putin’s decision to meet the Dultsevs and other freed Russian prisoners on the tarmac was “a tribute to people who serve their country and who, after very difficult trials, and thanks to the hard work of many people, have been able to return to the Motherland”.

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The trade involved 24 prisoners, 16 sent from Russia to the West and eight prisoners held by Western governments handed back to Russia.

The Kremlin used the occasion to acknowledge that Vadim Krasikov, who was jailed for murdering a Chechen rebel in Berlin in 2019, was a member of Russia’s most powerful security agency.

The former FSB agent was Moscow’s main target in the prisoner swap that included Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, and Paul Whelan, a former US marine.

The Kremlin had previously denied that Krasikov, who pleaded not guilty during his trial in Germany, was a Russian agent and maintained that he was Vadim Sokolov, a tourist visiting Berlin.

But Peskov announced on Friday: “Krasikov is an employee of the Federal Security Service.

“He served in Alpha [a special forces unit]. It’s interesting that when he served in Alpha he did so with several officers of the president’s security detail.

“So naturally, they [Putin and Krasikov] greeted each other yesterday when they saw each other.”

Telegraph, London