Russian President Vladimir Putin
© Sputnik/ Aleksey Nikolskyi
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday decrees pardoning for humanitarian reasons two Ukrainian nationals sentenced by a Russian court to lengthy prison terms, the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

Gennady Afanasiev was sentenced by the Moscow City Court in December 2014 to seven years in high-security colony on terrorism charges, while Yury Soloshenko was sentenced in October 2015 to six years in high-security colony on espionage charges.

According to the statement, both pardon decrees come into force on the day of signing.

In exchange for the prisoners, Russia received two Ukrainian journalists.

Glischinskaya, who was accused of separatism and treason and detained in Odessa in April 2015, arrived in Moscow with an infant born in prison.

Didenko was serving a prison term in a Ukrainian colony on charges of encroachment on territorial integrity of Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin administration, the release of the journalists was facilitated by efforts of the Ukrainian president's Envoy for humanitarian issues at the Contact Group on Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk.