The United States on Thursday deported a Russian man wanted by Moscow on charges of armed robbery, Russian authorities said, amid intensifying diplomacy between the two sides.

In a statement published on Telegram, Russia's prosecutor general said that Dmitry Koshelev had been deported from the US and would arrive in Moscow via Cairo.

Koshelev, it said, had been part of a group that had stolen $1.5 million at gunpoint from a courier at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport in 2014 while dressed as member of Russian special forces.

It said he later surfaced in the US, where he was convicted of immigration violations and deported at Russia's initiative.

US-Russian diplomacy

The move comes amid warming ties between the US and Russia, whose diplomats met in Turkey on Thursday as part of a wider dialog aimed at mending relations and seeking an end to the war in Ukraine.

The thaw in ties also led to a prisoner swap earlier this month, with the US freeing a Russian cryptocurrency tycoon in exchange for a US schoolteacher who had been jailed in Russia on drugs charges.