WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke Friday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, and urged him to accept a proposal to release Brittney Griner and Paul N. Whelan, but reports are not available. overate.
Mr. Blinken told reporters at a news conference that he spoke with his Russian counterpart by phone, their first conversation since several weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. declined to say how Lavrov reacted.
“I have urged Foreign Minister Lavrov to continue that proposal,” he said. “I won’t describe his reaction and I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are more likely to happen.”
In its account Regarding the call, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that when talking about the possibility of exchanging captives, Lavrov suggested a return to a process of “quiet diplomacy”, without “first-class information campaigns”. muscle”.
Ms. Griner, a WNBA star who played for a Russian team during her break, is on trial in a Russian court and faces up to 10 years in prison for drug charges. The 31-year-old athlete was detained at a Moscow airport about a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, after customs officials discovered hashish oil in her luggage.
Mr. Whelan, former director of maritime and corporate security, detained in 2018 in a hotel in Moscow, where he was staying at a friend’s wedding. In 2020, a Russian court sentenced him to 16 years in prison for espionage, a charge he and his family have denied.
The State Department classified both Mr Whelan and Ms Griner as “wrongfully detained”.
According to a person briefed on the matter, the Biden administration last month offered to trade Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year federal prison sentence in the United States, against Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan.
Blinken also said he pressed Mr. Lavrov to make good on Russia’s recent agreement to transport Ukrainian grain from ports in the Black Sea and told him the world would never accept Russia’s annexation. more Ukrainian territory.
He warned Mr. Lavrov against “fake referendums” that “falsely prove that people in these regions of Ukraine somehow seek to become part of Russia.”
Such actions “will lead to significant additional costs for Russia, if it follows through on this plan,” Blinken said.
Lavrov, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the grain situation was “complicated by US sanctions”. He also said that Russian forces “strictly adhere to the rules of international law.”
He added that Russia’s goals in Ukraine “will be fully realized.”
