MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) - Swapping Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who is serving a term in the United States, for Valery Mikhailov, who was sentenced in Russia for espionage, is unlikely, said Gennady Gudkov, a member of A Fair Russia parliamentary faction and vice-chairman of the Sate Duma's security committee.
"I don't think such an exchange is possible. Even if Bout had not been an agent of the Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU), as some Western media claimed, what he has done will likely discourage the American side from swapping him for its Russian agent," Gudkov, a retired Federal Security Service colonel, told Interfax on Friday.
But Mikhailov could be swapped for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is also serving a term in the United States, he said.
"Yaroshenko could have fallen victim to a set-up. I think the United States could swap him for its agent Mikhailov, who is important for CIA, judging by media reports," he said.
Russia and the United States should work out a mechanism of swapping their citizens serving terms for committing crimes in each other's territory "without linking it to concrete persons in a likely swap scheme," he said.
Media reports claimed on Thursday that Moscow and Washington could swap Mikhailov, an ex-FSB colonel who was convicted for spying for CIA, for Bout, or pilot Yaroshenko.
The Moscow military district court sentenced Mikhailov to 18 years in jail for divulging state secrets to CIA, committing high treason and damaging national security. He will serve his term in a high-security prison.