"August 8:

Russia's Foreign Ministry has officially confirmed that the U.S. is holding eight Russian citizens captured in Afghanistan at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, Interfax-AVN reports. According to the ministry, Washington is completing "the legal and technical formalities" needed to extradite them to Russia. Meanwhile, Gazeta quotes the mother of one of the Russian detainees as saying she is "terribly scared" her son will be extradited and wind up in a Russian prison. According to the newspaper, the detainee told his mother in a letter that nobody held at Guantanamo "is being beaten or humiliated" and that living conditions there are better than at Russian health resorts."