Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the US has offered a deal to Russia to bring home two Americans. In a reversal of previous policy, Blinken said he expects to speak with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine
It was the first time that the U.S. government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and testified Wednesday at her trial.
It's not clear if the proposed deal will be enough for Russia to free the Americans. The public acknowledgment of the offer at a time when the U.S. shuns Russia reflects the mounting pressure on the administration to get them home.
At her drug possession trial in Russia, American basketball star Brittney Griner testified that she was told to sign documents without knowing what was said to her when she was questioned at Moscow's airport.
The United States would like a response from Moscow. Russia has long been interested in the release of Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 for scheming to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.
The Russian Foreign Minister received a call from the deputy US Secretary of State. The desire for an answer on the prisoner offer was the main reason why the U.S. asked for the call with Lavrov.
It would be the first conversation that the two men have had in a week. The importance of Russia complying with a UN brokered deal to free multiple tons of Ukrainian grain from storage and warning of the dangers of Russian attempts to annex portions of eastern and southern Ukraine will be discussed by the two men.
A Michigan man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage. He and his family are adamant that he is not guilty. The US government has denied the charges.
She admitted in court that she had a cannabis oil in her luggage when she arrived in Moscow, but insisted that she had no criminal intent.
At her trial on Wednesday, she said she didn't know how the cannabis oil ended up in her bag, but that she had a doctor's recommendation for it. She said she was pulled aside at the airport, but that a language interpreter only translated a fraction of what was said during her questioning, and that officials instructed her to sign documents without an explanation.
If he is found guilty of transporting drugs, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
The US government has resisted prisoner swaps out of concern that it could encourage more hostage-taking and promote false equivalency between a wrongly imprisoned American and a foreign national. The Biden administration has been hounded with political pressure to bring home Griner and other Americans who have been wrongly imprisoned, as a result of an earlier deal in which Marine veteran Trevor Reed was traded for a Russian pilot.
There was no indication that the two men were trying to get Reed released. The last public contact they had was February 22, when they canceled a meeting they had planned as a last-ditch attempt to avert the Russian invasion. Russia's diplomacy was called "Kabuki Theater" by the State Department.
The two last met in person in January to discuss what was then Russia's massive military build-up alongUkraine's border and Russian demands for NATO to reduce its presence in eastern Europe. The U.S. turned down the Russians' demands.
At a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations in Indonesia, they avoided each other, but at the same time they were in the same place.
The two men will both be in the same city at the same time next week as they attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. It was not clear if the phone call ahead of the meeting would lead to an in- person discussion.
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