Russian spies’ children learnt their nationality after prisoner swap

Sixteen were Western prisoners detained in Russian jails and eight were Russian prisoners held in the US, Norway, Germany, Poland and Slovenia. Among them was Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

The Russian family of four were warmly welcomed, with Mrs Dultseva and her daughter receiving flowers and a warm embrace from President Putin.

“Buenas noches,” the president said to the spies’ children, as he greeted them in Spanish.

As reported by Argentinian media, the couple were known as María Mayer and Ludwig Gisch and arrived in Slovenia sporting their Argentinian passports in 2017.

The husband set up a start-up IT company under his alias name and the wife had an online art gallery.

The family used Ljubljana as their base and it was not until 2022 that the couple were arrested by Slovenian police on espionage charges.

Ahead of the large scale prisoner swap, Mr Dultsev and Mrs Dultseva were sentenced to 19 months in prison each, after pleading guilty to spying charges on Wednesday. But given their arrests in 2022, they were released on time served and ordered to leave Slovenia, as reported by the Associated Press.

It was not until Thursday, during the large scale Russia-West prisoner swap, that the Kremlin spies, and their children, were returned to Russia.

Life for 11-year-old Sofia and 8-year-old Gabriel changed thereafter and they only learnt they were Russian when the plane set off from Ankara to Vnukovo Airport, the Kremlin said.