{"id":524648,"date":"2026-01-10T00:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadpakistan.com.pk\/news\/?p=524648"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:54:09","slug":"french-researchers-freed-by-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadpakistan.com.pk\/news\/french-researchers-freed-by-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"French researchers freed by Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS: Russia is freeing French researcher Laurent Vinatier in a prisoner swap deal after he spent more than a year in prison for failing to register as a \u201cforeign agent\u201d. Vinatier\u2019s release is in exchange for Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, who has been imprisoned in France since last June at the request of the US over a hacking charge. The release of Vinatier, 49, and Kasatkin, 26, follows recent prisoner swaps between Russia and the West. August 2024 saw the largest exchange since the Cold War era, with 24 people freed. Russia\u2019s state-owned news agency RIA reports that Vinatier had been pardoned by President Vladimir Putin. DNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS: Russia is freeing French researcher Laurent Vinatier in a prisoner swap deal after he spent more than a year in prison for failing to register as a \u201cforeign agent\u201d. Vinatier\u2019s release is in exchange for Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, who has been imprisoned in France since last June at the request of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-524648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>French researchers freed by Russia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leadpakistan.com.pk\/news\/french-researchers-freed-by-russia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"French researchers freed by Russia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PARIS: Russia is freeing French researcher Laurent Vinatier in a prisoner swap deal after he spent more than a year in prison for failing to register as a \u201cforeign agent\u201d. 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