News

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.