Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday regarding a prisoner exchange proposal that would result in Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan gaining their freedom.
Blinken said during a press conference that he “pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we put forth on the release of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner.” Such a high-level contact is noteworthy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
US MAKES ‘SUBSTANTIAL PROPOSAL’ TO RUSSIA FOR GRINER AND WHELAN’S RELEASE
The Biden administration revealed on Wednesday that the United States had made the “substantial proposal” to the Russians, which was a significant divergence from the U.S. standard operating procedure for hostage negotiations. While the State Department and administration made the public admission, officials declined to confirm the reports that this included the transfer of convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Griner’s trial is ongoing, and she’s facing a 10-year prison sentence for drug charges in a Russian judicial system that overwhelmingly results in guilty verdicts for drug possession. She has been detained since mid-February, when she was arrested at a Moscow airport for bringing vape cartridges into the country. During the trial, she explained that the cartridges had been prescribed for her and that she unintentionally brought them.
Her detention has brought a spotlight on Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on allegations that he was a spy, which he denies.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted the U.S.’s unusual maneuver before the call, saying, “We know that such issues are discussed without any such release of information. … Normally, the public learns about it when the agreements are already implemented.”
Bout, a notorious arms dealer who has been accused of selling weapons to various human rights abusers, has been serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S. since 2012.
