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Frode Berg, sentenced to 14 years in prison, admitted working with Norwegian intelligence
Two Russians jailed for espionage have been pardoned by the president of Lithuania. It could clear the way for Russia to release two Lithuanians and a Norwegian in a spy swap.
Russia said hours later that it would respond in kind to the Lithuanian announcement.
For weeks, Norway, Russia and Lithuania have working on a three-way exchange.
Russians Nikolai Filipchenko and Sergei Moisejenko were jailed in the Baltic state two years ago.
Norway has been trying to secure the release of Frode Berg, who was arrested in Moscow in 2017.
His case has become a cause celebre in Norway after the retired border guard, who had served on Norway’s border with Russia, was found with naval documents handed to him by a former Russian policeman.
Lithuania also has two men in Russian jails who have been convicted of spying. Yevgeny Mataitis and Aristidas Tamosaitis were jailed in 2016. Lithuania was a former Soviet republic but since independence in 1990 has joined the EU and Nato.
Is the spy swap imminent?
The announcement of a pardon for the two Russians by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda was the key to getting the exchange under way. Norwegian reports on Friday said everything was now set.
The head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, said “according to my information, it is reciprocal measures.”
Lithuania’s presidential spokesman said only that further questions would be answered “in the near future”.
Hopes of an exchange increased in late October when Moscow’s official pardons commission recommended the Norwegian for pardon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Norway and promised a decision would come soon.
- Russia ‘set for pardon’ in Norwegian spy case
The process was then put on hold for several weeks for Lithuania’s parliament to change the criminal code to allow the president to pardon spies. Lithuania’s state defence council, which is chaired by the president, then approved the swap last week, according to Baltic News Service.
“This may happen in one or two days, depending on how quickly practical questions are resolved,” Berg’s Norwegian lawyer Brynjulf Risnes was quoted as saying.
Who are the five involved?
Russians: Nikolai Filipchenko – FSB security service agent was given 10 years for trying to recruit senior Lithuanians; Sergei Moisejenko was given 10 years for recruiting a Lithuanian army officer serving at Siauliai military base.
Norwegian: Frode Berg – retired border guard admitted acting as a courier for Norwegian intelligence but denied spying.
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Lithuanians: Ex-naval officer Yevgeny Mataitis is a dual Russian-Lithuanian citizen who served in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. He was given 13 years for selling secrets to Lithuanian intelligence.
Aristidas Tamosaitis was jailed for 12 years after he was detained in Moscow in 2015 for receiving secrets from a Russian citizen.
How will the exchange take place?
The three-way nature of the swap makes the process more complicated, although it could take place at the same place.
During the Cold War, exchanges took place at the Glienicke Bridge between East and West Berlin.
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Since the end of the Cold War, spy swaps have become rare events.
The last big one, in 2010, took place at Vienna airport, when 10 Russian agents were flown in from the US and swapped for four Americans convicted in Russia.
But there have been smaller swaps on a bridge between Russia and Estonia. In 2015, an Estonian security official who the EU said was abducted by Russia was swapped for a man imprisoned in Estonia for spying for Moscow.
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