On Dozhd, Coale said that he considers the release of Russian political prisoners possible, since such a step, in his view, could improve relations between Russia and the U.S. At the same time, he noted that he does not know whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will agree to this.
Coale added that he would like to handle this issue “more closely” and is already working on it together with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, since the Russian direction is under his purview. He also said that the U.S. intends to seek the release of civilians captured in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
According to Coale, there are civilians in both countries who are in captivity, and “certain proposals” are now being prepared on this topic. He emphasized that President Trump is actively supporting this work.
As context, Coale recalled that after the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. had already carried out prisoner exchanges. The largest of them took place on August 1, 2024: as part of a multilateral deal, Moscow released 16 people, including Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Lilia Chanysheva, Andrey Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, and Alexandra Skochilenko, as well as American journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva.
After Trump returned to the White House, Russia and the U.S. carried out two more prisoner exchanges. In February 2025, Moscow released American Mark Fogel, who had been convicted of drug smuggling, while Washington released Alexander Vinnik, who was accused of laundering billions of dollars through the BTC-e crypto exchange.
In April, the sides exchanged Russian and U.S. citizen Ksenia Karelina, who was convicted in the Russian Federation for transferring $51.8 to a Ukrainian charity fund, for Russian and German citizen Arthur Petrov, whom the American authorities accused of smuggling microelectronics for the Russian military industry.
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