MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. US national Paul Whelan, convicted in Russia on espionage charges, is hopeful that the Russian authorities will hand him over to the US so that he can continue to serve his sentence out in the United States, lawyer Olga Karlova told TASS after visiting her client in a penal colony in the Mordovia region.

"Whelan expects that the Russian authorities will hand him over to the United States so that he can continue to serve his sentence there. We hope that the issue will be discussed at a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden," she pointed out.

According to the lawyer, in return, the US may hand jailed Russians over to Moscow to continue serving their sentences in Russia. "Perhaps, it will be Viktor Bout or Konstantin Yaroshenko, or someone else," Karlova noted.

Whelan, who holds US, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow on December 28, 2018, while on a spy mission. A criminal case was opened against him under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code (espionage). The Moscow City Court eventually sentenced Whelan to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.