Russian premier Vladimir Putin met with the 10 Russian spies who were earlier this month part of the largest spy swap since the Cold War after being outed in the United States, he said Saturday, dpa reported.
"They will continue to work (for us). We will find a valuable place for them them," Putin said during a visit to Ukraine.
The former head of the Russian intelligence service did not say when or where he had met with the spies, who were traded for four agents working for Western intelligence agencies.
"We talked about life and sang songs," the Interfax news agency reported Putin as saying. He said the blowing of the spies' cover was due to "betrayal".
The spies were arrested in the US at the end of June and exchanged earlier this month at the international airport in Vienna in a deal arranged between Washington and Moscow to prevent damage to relations between the countries.