xe2x80x9cYou may be seeing the signs that they are continuing to pursue this case, with real big implications for exposing in even greater detail what the Russians did to influence the outcome of our election,xe2x80x9d said Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration.

According to the insider trading indictment, Klyushinxe2x80x99s IT company, M-13,xc2xa0worked for the Russian presidency and governmental agencies. Also named in the indictment was Ivan Yermakov, a former military intelligence official who was indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Muellerxe2x80x99s investigation into Russian interference in 2016.

But the intriguing part of Klyushinxe2x80x99s capture in Switzerland may be that he traveled there at all.

Bloomberg reports that Klyushin was xe2x80x9capproached by U.S. and U.K. spy agencies in the two years before his exit from Russia and received heightened levels of security in Switzerland.xe2x80x9d He also curiously failed to make a final appeal challenging his extradition to the U.S. after both U.S. and Russianxc2xa0officials had been competing to win his extradition from Switzerland following his arrest there.

xe2x80x9cIt underscores the risk that anybody, billionaires or others close to the Russian state, face when they break American laws if they travel abroad,xe2x80x9d McFaul noted.xc2xa0

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Russia says it wants to negotiate a legally binding guarantee that the NATO military alliance would give up any military activity in eastern Europe and Ukraine. The demands form a package that Russia says is an essential requirement for lowering tensions in Europe and defusing a crisis over Ukraine, which other countries have accused Russia of sizing up for a potential attack xe2x80x93 something it has denied. They also contained elements xe2x80x93 such as an effective Russian veto on NATO membership for Ukraine xe2x80x93 that the US and its allies have already ruled out. Presenting the demands in detail for the first time, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters that Russia and NATO must start from a clean sheet in rebuilding relations. xe2x80x9cThe line pursued by the United States and NATO over recent years to aggressively escalate the security situation is absolutely unacceptable and extremely dangerous,xe2x80x9d he said. xe2x80x9cWashington and its NATO allies should immediately stop regular hostile actions against our country, including unscheduled exercisesxe2x80xa6 and manoeuvres of military ships and planes, and stop the military development of Ukrainian territory.xe2x80x9d Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at Kingxe2x80x99s College London, said on Twitter that President Vladimir Putin was xe2x80x9cdrawing a line around the post-Soviet space and planting a xe2x80x98keep outxe2x80x99 signxe2x80x9d. xe2x80x9cItxe2x80x99s not meant to be a treaty: itxe2x80x99s a declaration,xe2x80x9d he said. xe2x80x9cBut that doesnxe2x80x99t