WASHINGTON, December 23. /TASS/. Russian-US prisoner swap talks have proved fruitful and work on this issue continues, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antolov said in an interview with TASS.

"Russia and the US maintain a communication channel between intelligence agencies to search for solutions in terms of prisoner swaps. The dialogue proved fruitful this year, producing positive results, as Konstantin Yaroshenko and Viktor Bout were returned home," the diplomat pointed out.

He added that "work is underway." "Let our colleagues work in a quiet and calm environment, without the media pushing them, because the main thing for us is to achieve a positive result," Antonov stressed.

He also confirmed that Moscow planned to bring all Russians jailed in the US back home. "Our task is difficult: to prevent a situation where even one Russian national remains in US prison, while today, there are about 100 of them. Moreover, their list keeps growing. We constantly get information about our fellow citizens arrested in third countries at the request of the US with the prospect of extraditing them to local authorities. They are in for major ordeals there, including intolerable incarceration conditions and long interrogations harmful to their health, and eventually, years-long prison terms that seriously affect people’s physical and psychological health," the ambassador said.

According to him, "the Americans understand all this and try to persuade Russian nationals to make ‘a deal,’ that is, plead guilty, promising them shorter prison terms in return." "I would like to reiterate our Foreign Ministry’s call to our fellow citizens to think long and hard about traveling overseas. If foreign agencies may be interested in them, they better refrain from such trips," Antonov added.