Moscow - (AFP) - The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday that talks for a prisoner exchange had taken place between Russia and the United States , but said that "no agreement has been reached yet," after Washington announced that it had made a "substantive offer" in Moscow.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said in a statement that the negotiations "are being conducted by the relevant authorities. No practical result has been achieved so far."

She added that Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin had ordered talks to exchange prisoners, explaining that this issue had been constantly raised since their summit in June 2021 in Geneva.

And US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Wednesday that he would talk "in the coming days" with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to discuss an American offer to reach the release of Americans in Moscow.

"I intend to raise a cause that is our priority: the liberation of Paul Whelan and Brittney Grainer, who are wrongly arrested and who should be allowed to return to their country," Blinken said.

He added, "We made an offer weeks ago to facilitate the release" of the American detainees, noting that "our government communicated repeatedly and directly about this proposal, and I will take advantage of the conversation to follow up personally."

And US media reported that it might be a matter of exchanging the two American prisoners for the Russian arms smuggler, Victor Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States.