Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he has met the Russian agents recently deported from the US – and claimed they were living “tough lives” and had been “betrayed”.
He told journalists that he had sung Soviet-era patriotic songs with the agents.
However, Mr Putin did not say where the meeting took place.
The 10 Russians admitted in a US court earlier this month to being agents for a foreign country.
More serious money laundering charges against them were dropped.
They were then flown to Vienna, where a Russian jet carrying four prisoners freed by Russia arrived around the same time – in what was America’s biggest spy swap with Russia since the Cold War.
