World
Kremlin acknowledges intelligence operatives among the Russians who were freed in swap
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — New details emerged Friday on the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, with the Kremlin acknowledging for the first time that some of the Russians held in the West were from its security services. Families of freed dissidents, meanwhile, expressed their joy at the surprise release.
While journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva and former Marine Paul Whelan were greeted by their families and President Joe Biden in Maryland on Thursday night, President Vladimir Putin embraced each of the Russian returnees at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, and promised them state awards and a “talk about your future.”
Among the eight returning to Moscow was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a former Chechen fighter in a Berlin park. German judges said the murder was carried out on orders from Russian authorities.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Krasikov is an officer of the Federal Security Service, or FSB — a fact reported in the West even as Moscow denied any state involvement.
He also said Krasikov once served in the FSB’s special Alpha unit, along with some of Putin’s bodyguards.
“Naturally, they also greeted each other yesterday when they saw each other,” Peskov said, underscoring Putin’s high interest in including Kresikov in the swap.
Peskov also confirmed that the couple released in Slovenia — Artem Dultsov and Anna Dultsova — were undercover intelligence officers commonly known as “illegals.” Posing as Argentine expats, they used Ljubljana as their base since 2017 to relay Moscow’s orders to other sleeper agents and were arrested on espionage charges in 2022.
Their two children joined them as they flew to Moscow via Ankara, Turkey, where the mass exchange took place. They do not speak Russian, and only learned their parents were Russian nationals sometime on the flight, Peskov said.
They also did not know who Putin was, “asking who is it greeting them,” he added.
“That’s how illegals work, and that’s the sacrifices they make because of their dedication to their work,” Peskov said.
Two dozen prisoners were freed in the historic trade, which was in the works for months and unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow freed 15 people in the exchange — Americans, Germans and Russian dissidents — most of whom have been jailed on charges widely seen as politically motivated. Another German national was released by Belarus.
Among the dissidents released were Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated; associates of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny; Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
They were flown to Germany amid an outpouring of joy from their supporters and relatives — but also some shock and surprise.
“God, it is such happiness! I cried so much when I found out. And later, too. And I’m about to cry again now, as well,” said Tatyana Usmanova, the wife of Andrei Pivovarov, another opposition activist released in the swap, writing on Facebook as she flew to meet him. Pivovarov was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to four years in prison.
In a phone call to Biden, Kara-Murza said “no word is strong enough for this.”
“I don’t believe what’s happening. I still think I’m sleeping in my prison cell in (the Siberian city of) Omsk instead of hearing your voice. But I just want you to know that you’ve done a wonderful thing by saving so many people,” he said in a video posted on X.
World
Secret Service Agent Assigned to Jill Biden Shoots Self in Leg
A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to former First Lady Jill Biden accidentally shot himself in the leg early on Friday near Philadelphia International Airport, according to a source familiar with the incident.
In a statement that did not mention Biden, the Secret Service said the incident occurred just after 8:30 a.m. EST and the agent suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
“There was no impact to the protectee’s movement and they were not present at the time of the incident,” the statement said.
The agent “accidentally discharged his firearm” while traveling in an unmarked SUV near the airport, Philadelphia Police Department Cpl. Jasmine Colón-Reilly said in a statement.
Emergency medical personnel responded to the scene and the agent was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in stable condition, Colón-Reilly said.
“The Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be reviewing the facts and circumstances of this incident,” the Secret Service said.
The Secret Service is responsible for providing security to current and former presidents, vice presidents and their families and foreign leaders and is also an investigative agency.
—
(Reporting by Christian Martinez in Los Angeles; editing by Scott Malone and Chris Reese)
World
Body found in search for missing American Airlines flight attendant in Colombia: mayor
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A mayor in Colombia announced that a corpse had been discovered and was likely that of an American citizen who had gone missing.
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, a 32-year-old American Airlines flight attendant from Texas, had gone missing while in the foreign country, according to reports.
“Since last Sunday, we have been searching for Eric Gutiérrez, a U.S. citizen who is missing,” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez noted in a Friday post on X, according to a translation from Spanish.
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT ATTENDANT VANISHES DURING COLOMBIA LAYOVER: ‘HIS FAMILY IS DESPERATE’
Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez speaks during a press conference on Dec. 19, 2025. (JAIME SALDARRIAGA / AFP via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, a lifeless body has just been found between the municipality of Jericó and Puente Iglesias,” he noted.
“There is a very high probability that it is this person,” the mayor explained.
COLOMBIAN MILITARY PLANE CRASH KILLS AT LEAST 66, HEAD OF ARMED FORCES SAYS
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina (CDColExt/X)
“We are heartbroken by the tragic passing of our colleague,” American Airlines noted in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Saturday.
‘AMERICAS COUNTER CARTEL COALITION’: INSIDE THE US STRATEGY TO COMBAT NARCO TERROR, CONFRONT CHINA, OTHER FOES
An American Airlines Airbus A321 departs from Harry Reid International Airport on March 11, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“Our thoughts and support are with his family, loved ones and colleagues during this difficult time, and we are doing all we can to assist Colombian law enforcement in its investigation,” the company added.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report
World
Hundreds of thousands march through London in stand against the far right
London, United Kingdom – Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through central London in what organisers are calling the largest ever demonstration against the far right in British history.
The Together Alliance march, backed by about 500 groups including trade unions, antiracism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, brought together a diverse crowd of all ages from across the country on Saturday, converging on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament.
list of 3 itemsend of listRecommended Stories
Organisers said that half a million people took part.
Kevin Courtney, chairman of the Together Alliance, told crowds the march “gives us all confidence to carry on.”
London’s Metropolitan Police put the figure considerably lower, at approximately 50,000, though officers acknowledged it was difficult to reach an accurate figure given how spread out the crowds were.
The protest was met with a far smaller group of counterprotesters waving Israeli flags and Iran’s pre-1979 monarchical flag.
Aadam Muuse, a trade union activist, told Al Jazeera that racism and Islamophobia had moved from the fringes into mainstream politics, and was “being pushed by parliamentarians”.
He said the march was “much needed to push back against [Reform leader Nigel] Farage and his ilk,” adding that the populist party “must be defeated at the ballot box”.
Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from the march, said demonstrators were pushing back against what they saw as “the politics of hate and division” in the United Kingdom.
One demonstrator, activist and writer Hamja Ahsan, told Al Jazeera he was motivated to attend after a rally organised by the far-right agitator-activist Tommy Robinson that drew 150,000 people and was marred by violence that injured several police officers. Robinson is reportedly planning another rally in May.
“We need to show them that we’re the majority,” Ahsan said. “At a street level, the far right won’t take over our streets.”
He said the atmosphere on Saturday was akin to the Notting Hill Carnival, as the march united people from all backgrounds, “from pensioners to children”.
Museum worker Charlotte Elliston told Al Jazeera that she also feels unsettled by the far right’s creeping rise.
“You think this would never happen here, and then all of a sudden this might happen,” she said. “You see that it is getting scary.”
Several left-wing politicians joined the demonstration.
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn posted on X that the “problems we face are not caused by migrants or refugees”, arguing they were rooted instead in “an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires”.
MP Zarah Sultana said on X, “There’s one minority we should be angry at: the billionaires funding division while working class people can’t make ends meet.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, Dianne Abbott and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham were also among the crowds.
‘Historic demonstration’
The rights group Amnesty UK hailed the “historic demonstration”, saying marchers were “calling for a different vision of society – one which places dignity, compassion and human rights at its heart”.
A separate march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which assembled at Exhibition Road near Hyde Park, converged with the main demonstration during the afternoon.
Eighteen people were arrested outside New Scotland Yard on Saturday after staging a protest in support of Palestine Action, the protest group which remains proscribed under the Terrorism Act despite a High Court ruling in February that the government’s decision to ban it was unlawful.
The march comes amid rising racism as Farage’s Reform party surges in the polls.
Hope Not Hate, an antiracism campaign group, warned earlier in March that the British far right is now “bigger, bolder and more extreme than ever before”.
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoDrummer Brian Pastoria, longtime Detroit music advocate, dies at 68
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Youth’ Twitter review: Ken Karunaas impresses audiences; Suraj Venjaramoodu adds charm; music wins praise | – The Times of India
-
Sports1 week agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico6 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured
-
Business1 week agoDisney’s new CEO says his focus is on storytelling and creativity
-
Tennessee5 days agoTennessee Police Investigating Alleged Assault Involving ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson
-
Technology6 days agoYouTube job scam text: How to spot it fast
-
Texas1 week agoHow to buy Houston vs. Texas A&M 2026 March Madness tickets