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woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's glected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" ♪ >> you are watching the context. >> i was certain i would die in putin's prison. this feels surreal. i was certain i was going to die in prison. >> freed as part of a massive

prisoner swap. >> this was a good day for president biden. he hasn't had many lately. >> moscow is getting back agents, spies and hitmen, the other way, dissidents, journalists and artists. what a contrast. ♪ steve: a group of russian dissidents freed have been telling reporters they refused to plead for mercy. kamala harris secured enough

delegates to officially be the nominee for president. venezuela accuses the u.s. of being at the forefront of a coup. two of the most high-profile russian dissidents freed said they refused demands to plead for mercy from putin to secure their release. they were speaking alongside another dissident at a news conference in germany. they said they considered putin a tyrant, murderer and war criminal. he said he would not ask for pardon when he was not guilty. the kremlin giving more details about th russians who returned to moscow, admitting vladimir was an fsb agent who served in

the special forces unit. a russian and british activist has been giving a press conference in germany. >> a big strange screen. some days ago i was sitting in siberia. then yesterday, i was in a prison. now we are here in a press conference. all of it feels surreal. first of all, t gratitude. it is symbolic we are here now in the former capital.

very symbolic. lots of russian traditions have returned. traditions of wars and ignores of human rights and freedoms. it's important to see along with such nasty traditions, there are honorable traditions. one of them, one of those noble traditions is of the free and democratic countries, like westn germany, is the initiative of the leadership to relee political prisoners. steve: joe biden and kamala harris have greeted americans returned by russia. evan spent 500 days in a russian

prison and two others landed at an airbase near washington. reporter: president biden invited the families to the oval office. >> the oval office. reporter: they were counting the minutes. >> i miss you so much. reporter: evan appeared when vice president harris was distracted. he's behind you. this was a good day for president biden. he hasn't had many lately. an even better one for the families. the reporter hadn'torgotten the prisoners he left behind in russia. >> everyone i sat with was a political prisoner. >> paul whelan was held for

spying, which he denies. >> a long time coming. glad to be back. >> alsu, a russian american journalist was arrested last year. she was sentenced to 6.5 years because she had written a book. >> i asked them to do some things they were, that were against their immediate self-interest and difficult for them to do, particularly germany. reporter: slovenia released a russian couple who spied, masquerading as argentinians. germany freed an assassin now confirmed as a russian agent by the kremlin. he killed a chechen commander in berlin.

putin has set a precedent, to exert pressure on an enemy. steve: steve rosenberg explained what the kremlin is setting. >> admitting the russian agents, for example, the kremlin admitted, yes, the convicted assassin, released from a german jail does work for the fsb, russia's domestic security service. as part of this swap, moscow got back a russian intelligence officer and deep cover spy, a reference to the husband-and-wife team of sleeper agents posing as argentinians in europe, ended up in jail. they were so deep cover, even their children did not know they were russian. the parents only told the the

children when they were on the plane yesterday. extraordinary. moscow is getting back agents, spies and hitmen. going the other way, dissidents, journalists and an artist. quite the contrast. steve: amy mckinnon, national security reporter, foreign policy magazine. this deal took years. what got it over the line? amy: the linchpin was releasing that russian assassin from the german prison. that was what the russians wanted. they weren't going to budge if they didn't get him. that launched this tightly controlled quiet diplomatic effort to persuade and cajole

the germans to take this step to really someone collected for assassinating someone in broad daylight, in a park in berlin. steve: how did they secure them from these other countries? amy: we are still learning, piecing together the timeline which extends for one year or longer, and how these discussions went on with the germans. kamala harris played a role in this in her meeting with the german chancellor at the munich security conference in february. there was a lot of back-and-forth, trying to persuade the germans. there were several russians released as part of this deal who do not have german or u.s. citizenship. they are russian nationals. the germans wanted something significant if they were going

to let vladimir go. not just the americans, sorry russian political prisoners, getting them out was a significant enough package for the germans to go ahead with this. steve: this is seen as a win-win from both sides. that is how biden and putin are playing it. amy: a vindication of biden's foreign policy. when he came to office, he stated he want to rebuild transatlantic partnerships and alliances which have been strained under trump, particularly germany. officials have questioned whether the german chancellor would have taken a risk like this for a different president. what we heard from the white house was when olaf scholz finally made the decision, he said to biden, for you, i will

do this. personal diplomacy is something the white house has been keen to celebrate in the wake of this. steve: how precarious was this deal? alexei navalny, the death of the russian opposition leader nearly scuppered the deal? amy: that's right. he was such an important global figure, a high profile political prisoner in russia. initially, he was supposed to be part of this deal. when he died, that scrambled officials back to the table to begin to piece together another deal of a similar magnitudehat could help to move this forward. steve: thanks very much, amy. to the u.s. election. vice president harris says she is on to have secured enough delegates.

she will be nominating her pick for vice president. governor josh shapiro of pennsylvania is on the shortlist, as is mark kelly, governor of arizona, and tim walz, governor of minnesota. kamala harris and whoever she chooses will set off on a tour of battleground states next week. jamie harrison, chair of the dnc, expressed delight with having vice president harris confirmed as the nominee. jamie: as chair of this great party built on hope, i'm so proud to confirm vice president harris has earned more thathe majority of votes from all f are mentioned delegates -- from all for mentioned delegates, and will be the nominee.

the support has been unprecedented. we knew your ballots would come back quickly. the fact we can say one day after we opened voting that the vice president has crossed the threshold and will officially be the nominee next week? that is outstanding folks. steve: our correspondent in washington, naomi. harris is officially the nominee. wasn't a surprise. now vp. >> it was not a surprise. less than two weeks since president biden stood down and the party coalesced around harris. she has passed the threshold. the rollcall will continue until monday evening. she has got the nomination. she has to accept it which will

happen at the dnc. we will know who her running mate is at that point. different people on the list, governors, senators, andy beshear, josh shapiro, mark kelly. they will all be having interviews over the course of the weekend. when she announces them, we are not sure. we will know by tuesday when she holds a rally in pennsylvania with the pick. that has led to speculation that it could be josh shapiro, governor of pennsylvania. steve: full steam ahead to november. reporter: that will be. she has a short time to get out and sell herself to the people. this process of picking vp, i'm not sure how long it took obama

but it was months, not weeks, which is what she has. less than 100 days before the election. she's hitting the battlegrounds. she's got a rally every day next week. with the vpn place, -- vp in place, that will help to sell the message. today is the first step toward getting out from behind president biden's shadow. steve: has there been reaction from donald trump to today's events? reporter: not yet. donald trump has criticized kamala harris getting the nomination, calling it a coup. republicans said it was unlawful because president biden secured millions of votes during the

primaries but that is not legally accurate because president biden was never officially the nominee. he will not be the nominee at the dnc. we can expect donald trump to continue without attack. -- continue with that attack. steve: this is bbc news. let's look at other stores. robert jenrick said he wanted to breathe w life into the tory party. he acknowledged he had a mountain to climb to stand in the race. he had to get the backing of 10 conservative mps. the who says 175,000 people die

annually from extreme heat in europe. deaths have increased in the region by 30%. the who warned more people would die from heat related symptoms as a result of global warming. the secretary has called on hugh edwards to hand back the salary he earned from the bbc after being arrested on child abuse charges. the bbc continue to employ him for five months after he was arrested. hamas has called for a day of furious rage to mark the funeral in doha of its political leader, haniyah, assassinated in in. his body has been taken outside the city where he is being buried in a simple ceremony. mourners attended the funeral

prayers at the state mosque. officis from arab and muslim countries have been attending. hamas and iran have vowed revenge on israel which has refused to confirm it carried out the attack. israel claimed responsibility for a rocket strike in beirut which killed a top commander in the iranian backed group hezbollah. israel blames him for the deaths of 12 children in the golan heights. israel confirmed an airstrike in gaza last month succeeded in killing the leader of the hamas military wing. all this has heightened anxiety about the regional conflict in the middle east and cease-fire talks to stop the war in gaza and secure the release of israeli hostages seems to be at a standstill.

our correspondent told us what she is hearing about the likely nature of the retaliation. >> iran will want to do something different, to signal clearly that this is a response of a different order because of the nature of what happened at 2 a.m. wednesday morning in tehran, d the heart of the iranian capital, when israel was able to assassinate, not just an ally, but the political head of hamas, who had been meeting the iranian supreme leader hours before, who of course, the day after then was saying funeral prayers over his casket in tehran. the iranians will want to do something that looks and feels different. there is every possibility they will try to engage their regional allies. we've already had hezbollah promising revenge, hamas

promising revenge. houthis are carrying out attacks on international shipping going through the red sea. steve: we are joined by gina abercrombie. thank you so much for joining us. the number of enemies israel has on its doorstep there. president biden said the u.s. military was redeploying forces to the middle east. is the u.s. ready to be dragged back into another middle east conflict? >> i don't believe the u.s. is interested in being dragged into a middle east conflict but support and ties we have with israel are such that that is the nature of where we are functioning today. we heard the president say the assassination of haniyah has

been unhelpful. very diplomatic term. we know the efforts at diplomacy have been redoubled. unfortunately diplomacy has been on the front burner from october 8. part to say there has been a lapse in it because crises have unfolded day after day for 10 months. diplomats from the rest, the region and europe have been working on the front burners of this trying to keep it from expanding. it is telling we have gone back today to the tit-for-tat strikes between hezbollah into northern israel and israel into southern lebanon. that operational tempo still has a sense this is not a wider war. it shows us how different the world is from october 6 to where

we are now and the tolerance for conflict in the region that we are accepting for this point. steve: you mentioned biden using diplomatic language. could you give us plain language as to why the u.s. is failing to get israel and netanyahu to de-escalate tensions? gina: it comes down to our long-standing relationship and the president's personal commitment to israel. this includes, until now, a wide latitude for the leader of israel to carry out activities in support of this conflict as he, prime minister netanyahu, sees fit. it's uncomfortable for the u.s. it costs us treasure. it may put u.s. lives in danger. yet, we are not controlling the

circumstances of escalating the conflict. the u.s. is focused on lowering the temperature. we can see a dision in the region including the u.s. and iran about who's interested in lowering the temperature and reaching cease-fire and those parties which do not apparently have that as priority. as a priority, the u.s., the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, that cease-fire, getting hostages home, getting aid to gaza is paramount. iran has been careful in the last 10 months not to escalat when they retaliated for a strike, they publicized they would do so in order for the coalition to protect israel, to get in place and do that job. steve: we have to see how israel will retaliate. that could change the

calculations all the parties will have to consider going forward. i have to move on gina. thank you so much. the former chair of the bbc publicly thanked hugh edwards, despite knowing he had been arrested in november last year. he was charged over images that show child sex abuse. what more can you tell us? reporter: he was the interim chair of the bbc last year, weeks before the sun published allegations about mr. edwards' private life. those were separate from the criminal charges. on a welsh language radio

program, he referred to the now disgraced newsreader as poor hugh, and went on to praise his "huge contribution." she was aware edwards had been arrested last year but was not aware of the details which emerged in court wednesday this week and said she was horrified by those details and her thoughts are with the children whose images are so central to the story. i asked her whether she was made aware of the investigation into edwards in november last year. she has not answered that question, neither has she answered whether she stands by the comments made on that radio program. there will be people asking this evening whether she was wise to publicly praise someone she knew had been arrested in november last year. steve: what is next? reporter: who knows? hugh edwards is due back in court, september.

he will find out whether he faces prison. that seems unlikely. we will see. steve: thank you so much for getting us up to speed. plenty more to read on that story on our website, bbc.com. stay with us on bbc news. a lot more to bring you when it comes to discussions on the middle east and u.s. politics. bye for announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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