MOSCOW (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday deported a Russian man wanted by Moscow on charges of armed robbery, Russian authorities said, amid intensifying diplomacy between the two sides.
In a statement published on Telegram, Russia’s prosecutor general said that Dmitry Koshelev had been deported from the U.S. and would arrive in Moscow via Cairo.
Koshelev, it said, had been part of a group who had stolen $1.5 million at gunpoint from a courier at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport in 2014, while dressed as members of Russian special forces.
It said he later surfaced in the U.S., where he was convicted of immigration violations and deported at Russia’s initiative.
The move comes amid warming ties between the U.S. and Russia, whose diplomats met in Turkey on Thursday as part of a wider dialogue aimed at mending relations and seeking an end to the war in Ukraine.
The thaw in ties also led to a prisoner swap earlier this month, with the U.S. freeing a Russian cryptocurrency tycoon in exchange for a U.S. schoolteacher who had been jailed in Russia on drugs charges.
(Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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