US Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly announced that the US had made a “substantial proposal” to Moscow to release Griner and Whelan, but did not elaborate on what the proposal contained. The top US diplomat said he was waiting for a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, telling reporters he hoped that by talking to Lavrov, “I can advance efforts to bring them home.” Although Russia has acknowledged the US request for the call between the two top diplomats, it has not yet been rejected. “We continue to go back and forth,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing Thursday. “We continue to expect that they will have an opportunity to speak in the coming days.” The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Lavrov would “pay attention” to the request to talk to Blinken when “time permits”, but said the foreign minister’s schedule was currently busy.
Officials in the Biden administration have pointed out that Moscow did not respond to the agreement that was “repeatedly relayed directly over the course of several weeks,” in the words of a State Department spokesman. “The fact that, now several weeks later, we’re where we are, I think you can read that as a reflection of the fact that this hasn’t moved as much as we would like,” Price said Thursday. National Security Council Strategic Coordinator for Communications John Kirby said Thursday that “a lot” went into the decision to release news that a deal was presented, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America” ​​that “ultimately, we came down on the side that it was important to get the word out … the American people know how seriously President Biden takes his responsibilities to bring American citizens home when they have been wrongfully detained.” “We also thought it was important for the world to know how seriously America takes this responsibility,” Kirby said. But frustration over Russia’s lack of a meaningful response to the deal was a key factor in the administration’s decision to make the deal public on Wednesday. “We communicated a significant offer that we believe could be successful based on our history of talks with the Russians,” a senior administration official told CNN on Wednesday. The administration recognizes that negotiations to try to free detained Americans are often difficult. “We start all negotiations to bring home Americans who are held hostage or held illegally with a bad actor on the other side. We start all of this with someone who has taken a human American and treated him as a bargaining chip,” the senior official said. . “So in some ways it’s not surprising, even if it’s disappointing, when the same actors don’t necessarily respond directly to our offers, don’t engage constructively in negotiations,” they said. Asked about the proposed prisoner exchange on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed the issue “some time ago” and the two sides “have yet to achieve tangible results.” “. “We proceed with the understanding that the interests of both sides must be taken into account during this negotiation process,” he said, according to a transcript of the State Department question and answer. Russia has repeatedly raised Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the US, as a possible subject for the exchange of several American prisoners. CNN reported Wednesday that Bout’s negotiating potential has been under discussion since the beginning of the year and has received Biden’s support, according to sources briefed on the matter. Biden’s support for the swap trumps opposition from the Justice Department, which is generally against prisoner trade. Among senior Biden administration officials, the idea of ​​prisoner exchanges gained new momentum earlier this year after the successful release of Trevor Reed, a former Marine who had been held captive in Russia for more than two years. Reed was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot then serving a 20-year federal sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. The families of WNBA star Griner, who has been jailed in Moscow for drug possession since February, and Whelan, who has been held by Russia for alleged espionage since 2018, have pleaded with the Biden administration to secure their release, including through exchange of prisoners, if necessary. Griner, who pleaded guilty earlier this month but said she unwittingly brought cannabis to Russia, testified in a Russian courtroom Wednesday as part of her ongoing trial on drug charges for which she faces up to 10 years in prison . It is understood that her trial will need to be completed before a deal can be finalized, according to US officials familiar with the Russian court process and the inner workings of US-Russia negotiations. This story and headline have been updated with additional references. CNN’s Evan Perez and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.