The eight Russian and Ukranian engineers abducted from their house in Baghdad on Monday have been freed, report agencies.
The Russian news agency Interfax said the release had been confirmed by the country's embassy in Baghdad, and by Interenergoservis, the engineering firm which employed the eight technicians to help build a power station near Baghdad.
"According to preliminary information, these people really have been released," a Russian Embassy official told Interfax.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Kiev, Ukraine, which has the fifth largest military contingent in Iraq, said five of victims were Ukrainians. Moscow, which has not contributed any soldiers to the US-led coalition in Iraq, was considering pulling out hundreds of Russians in Iraq, most of them involved in the power sector following the abductions.