President Dmitry Medvedev has pardoned four Russian citizens in exchange for the return of ten Russian spies arrested by the United States. All men were pardoned yet forced to admit their guilt.

The men are:

Alexander Zaporozhsky

Former Colonel in the Foreign Intelligence Service, the successor to the KGB. He was convicted of treason in 2003 and sentenced to 18 years in prison, supposedly for cooperating with the United States.

Gennady Vasilenko

Former major in the KGB, supposedly sold-out by former FBI agent and Russian spy Robert Hanssen. Reportedly never became a full spy for the United States, only offering office gossip. Arrested in 1998.

Sergei Skripal

Former Russian officer, convicted of spying for the United Kingdom. A colonel in military intelligence, Skripal was paid large sums of money in the 1990s for providing the names of Russian spies. Arrested in December 2004 and charged with high treason. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Igor Sutyagin

The most prominent of the four men. He was a Russian arms control and nuclear weapons specialist. Though he had no access to classified information as a civilian researcher, Sutyagin was arrested and charged with treason in 1999.

Did I mention he lacked access to classified information? Because he did. All of the information he possessed and supposedly passed on came from open material. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison despite that fact.

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And so there you have it. In exchange for handing over ten deep cover Russian spies without punishment to Moscow, we’re getting these four Russian citizens released. After they’ve been forced to plead guilty. And one of them never actually provided classified information to the west. Worst of all, none of them are hot.