United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed he spoke over the phone with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this Friday and urged the Kremlin to accept the deal proposed to exchange American prisoners Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan for imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
This is reported to be the highest-level known contact between both governments in the past few months, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Blinken had previously requested this phone call as he revealed the existence of the trade proposal to the public.
“I urged Foreign Minister Lavrov to move forward with that proposal, I can’t give you an assessment of whether that is any more or less likely”, Blinked added.
Was there a positive response from Russia?
The U.S. Secretary of State shared this was a frank and direct conversation, but didn’t want to comment on his counterparts response, as he said he doesn’t want to characterize any of the Foreign Minister’s responses.
That might be an intelligent move, as he did share that Lavrov strongly suggested that the United States returned to a professional dialogue in the mode of quiet diplomacy.
This makes sense specially after Russian officials have repeatedly asked for the U.S. to pursue the freedom of American prisoners through quiet diplomacy, without releases of speculative information.
Other key topics were also addressed in the call
During the call Lavrov also confirmed that Russia vows to keep fighting in Ukraine until it has achieved its original plan, complaining that NATO and the United States support towards Ukraine is extending this armed conflict.
He also went on to accuse the U.S. of not keeping their end of the agreements made for grain shipments to exit Ukraine.
Marca
