Moscow criticised for thanking Hamas after releasing Russian prisoner

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, hand over Israeli hostages Alexander Sasha Turbanov, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Yair Horn to Red Cross teams near the house of Yahya Sinwar, one of the killed leaders of Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip, within the 6th round of hostage swap deal between Hamas and Israel in Khan Yunis, Gaza on February 15, 2025. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency]

Moscow has been criticised by Israeli media for ignoring the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip and only being concerned with the release of Russian citizen Alexander Trufanov, who was released on Saturday. Media outlets also criticised Moscow for thanking the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, after his release.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper noted that the Russian media did not use the term “terrorists” when referring to the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The newspaper added that Russia cared about Trufanov without mentioning any details about the other two prisoners, one of whom has US citizenship. Russian ambassador to Tel Aviv Anatoly Viktorov, complained the paper, also called Yahya Sinwar, the former head of the Hamas political bureau, a “late leader” and not a “terrorist leader”.

Viktorov said that his country had made great efforts to secure Trufanov’s release and would work to demand the release of the other Russian citizen, Maxim Herkin, who is being held in the Gaza Strip. Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reported that the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzouk, has confirmed that the resistance movement will consider the Russian request to release Herkin in the next phase of the prisoner exchange deal.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, meanwhile, expressed Moscow’s gratitude to the Palestinians as well as to the Qatari and Egyptian mediators for their assistance in reaching a positive outcome in the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

On Saturday, the Palestinian factions in Gaza handed over three Israeli captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which handed them over to the Israeli army as part of the sixth batch of the ceasefire deal.

To date, Israel has released 1,135 Palestinians, including dozens of prisoners serving life sentences, in exchange for 19 of its captives in the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli media outlets, 73 Israeli captives remain in Gaza, only half of whom are believed to be still alive.

READ: GMO: Israel obstructed 15th medical evacuation out of Gaza

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.