The Russian President Vladimir Putin, on May 17, 2024, during a meeting with students at the Harbin Institute of Technology in the northeast of the country. (Credit: Alexander Ryumin/AFP.)
Vladimir Putin met late Wednesday evening with a former Russian hostage of Hamas, released in February, the Kremlin announced, with the Russian president highlighting the "stable relations" Moscow has with Hamas.
The Kremlin released a video of the exchange between Putin and Alexander Troufanov, a 29-year-old Russian-Israeli citizen who spent "498 days" in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip until his release on February 15. "The fact that you were able to be released is due to the fact that Russia maintains stable and long-term relations with the Palestinian people, their representatives, and various organizations," praised Putin in front of Troufanov, his fiancée, and his mother during an exchange at the Kremlin.
Troufanov, his fiancée Sapir Cohen, his mother Elena Troufanova, and his grandmother Irina Tatti (according to their Russian names) were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, in the unprecedented attack by Hamas against Israel, during which Alexander's father, Vitali, was killed, according to the Russian agency RIA Novosti. The three women were later released at the end of November 2023.
Vladimir Putin expressed "his gratitude" Wednesday evening towards "the leadership and the political wing of Hamas" for allowing the release of Troufanov, calling it a "humanitarian act." After two months of a fragile truce between Hamas and Israel, the Israeli military resumed its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on March 18, from where the Palestinian movement launched unprecedented attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, against Israel.
In the wake, the Russian diplomacy "strongly condemned" these new Israeli strikes, deeming it "impossible" to resolve the hostage issue "by force." Of the 251 hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, 58 are still being held in the Gaza Strip, including 34 dead, according to the Israeli military.
Moscow regularly calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and a significant Russian community lives in Israel.
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