Donald Trump posted on social media that he will use his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to get Wall Street journalist Evan Gershkovich released. of the prison in which he is being held.
The former US president and current challenger candidate did not refer to any contact with Putin nor did he explain the reasons why he believes the Russian leader would release Gershkovich, according to the Reuters news agency.
trump He wrote on his social network Truth Social that this would occur shortly after the November elections in the United States, in which he seeks to defeat President Joe Biden and return to the White House.
“Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who is detained by Russia, will be released almost immediately after the election, but definitely before I take office. “He will be AT HOME, SAFE AND WITH HIS FAMILY”, Trump wrote.
And immediately, he boasted: “Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL NOT PAY ANYTHING!”
consulted Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov responded that Putin “naturally has had no contacts with Donald Trump.”
Gershkovich was detained in Russia in March last year on espionage charges that he, his newspaper and the Biden administration denied. roundly.
He spent more than a year in a Moscow prisonwithout a trial date having been set.
Putin He claimed in February that it might be possible to free him in exchange for a Russian imprisoned in Germany for murder.
Peskov reiterated previous Kremlin statements that contacts with Washington regarding any prisoner exchange must be carried out “in complete silence and with absolute discretion.” since “only in this way can they be effective.”
During his presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump expressed admiration for Putin, according to the Reuters news agency.
