“Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its people and people to determine,” he said.īlinken said the United States - which has been pouring billions in military aid into Ukraine - was “under no illusion” that Russia was ready to engage “meaningfully and constructively” to end the war. The conversation “will not be a negotiation about Ukraine,” Blinken told reporters. President Vladimir Putin went ahead and attacked nine days later, leading the United States and its allies to impose sweeping sanctions and to seek to isolate Russia on the world stage. The telephone conversation will be the first between Blinken and Lavrov since February 15 when the top US diplomat warned Russia against invading Ukraine. Whelan’s family in a statement voiced appreciation for the Biden administration’s efforts and hoped that Russia “accepts this or some other concession” for his freedom. Whelan, a security official at an auto parts company, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 and in 2020 sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage, which he denies.
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President Joe Biden has faced growing pressure to free Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison and whose wife earlier accused the administration of doing too little. The United States and Russia already engaged in one prisoner swap in the heat of the Ukraine war: In April Washington exchanged former US Marine Trevor Reed for convicted drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko.