The United States has had “direct conversations” with the Russian government about Paul Whelan since the release of Brittney Griner, the State Department said.
Whelan was arrested in December 2018 and given a 16-year prison sentence in 2020 for charges relating to espionage, which the former Marine and U.S. decry as baseless.
The Biden administration received widespread criticism for freeing Griner, a WNBA player, in a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout and leaving Whelan behind. Now, the administration has doubled down on efforts to free the American national. Those efforts were discussed Tuesday when State Department spokesman Ned Price announced that the two governments “have had direct conversations regarding Paul Whelan.”
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION RECOMMITS TO PAUL WHELAN’S RETURN FOUR YEARS AFTER ARREST
“Our imperative is to see that outcome brought about swiftly, so it doesn’t do us any good to speak to the details of that. But we said we are going to be committed — we’re going to be relentless, we’re going to be creative in doing everything we can to bring about Paul Whelan’s return to the United States, return to his family,” he said at a State Department press briefing.
The conversation likely took place in mid- to late December. National security adviser Jake Sullivan announced soon after Griner’s freeing that the U.S. would be engaging Russia about Whelan.
“I won’t say more about it because we’re trying to keep that in sensitive channels, but that’s the timetable. And we have had regular engagement, of course, along the way, and the next conversation at a high level will take place this week,” he said in mid-December.
Sullivan recommitted to freeing Whelan on the fourth anniversary of his arrest in late December.
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“Today marks four years of wrongful detention in Russia for American Paul Whelan and, as the president and I have told the Whelan family, we will not stop, we will not relent, we will not cease until all Americans can celebrate Paul’s return,” Sullivan said in a December statement. “Paul and the Whelan family recently showed the entire country the meaning of generosity of spirit in celebrating a fellow American’s return while Russia continues its deplorable treatment of Paul as a bargaining chip.”
