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Lavrov proposes time to discuss possible prisoner swap for Brittney Griner


Russia’s foreign minister said Friday that he would propose a convenient date for a phone call with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to discuss a possible prisoner exchange.

The Biden administration has offered to hand over Viktor BoutA Russian arms dealer was jailed in exchange for the release of American basketball star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul N. Whelan, both of whom are being held in Russia, according to one person. familiar with the negotiations.

The two Americans have become pawns in a high-stakes diplomatic game as relations between Moscow and Washington have markedly deteriorated since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

On Wednesday, Mr Blinken said that Washington had “put an important proposal on the table”, though he declined to discuss details. He added that he plans to discuss the proposal soon with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, with whom he has not spoken since Russia invaded Ukraine more than five months ago.

During a visit to Uzbekistan on Friday, Lavrov said he learned about Blinken’s statement from television during a visit to Africa this week. He said any phone conversation between the two men would have to be made from his office, and Russia had asked the US side to “clarify the questions they wanted to discuss.”

Mr. Lavrov said that the issue of the prisoner exchange was discussed during a meeting in January in Geneva between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, and that both leaders asked the government agencies of They discuss this further. Mr. Lavrov said that his ministry was not involved in that discussion, but that he would listen to what Mr. Blinken had to say.

The US government has come under increasing pressure from relatives of US citizens to get them released from prisons in Russia.

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, and customs officials discovered hashish oil in her luggage.

Mr. Whelan was arrested 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.

Mr. Bout is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people who said they were planning to kill Americans. Russia has denounced Bout’s prosecution in the US as politically motivated.

In April, after a complicated diplomatic missionRussia released Trevor Reed, another former Marine, in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who was sentenced to a long prison term in the US for cocaine trafficking.



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