4:57 p.m. ET, August 16, 2023
Exclusive: US secretary of state speaks by phone with American detained in Russia
From CNN's Kylie Atwood, Jennifer Hansler and Kayla Tausche
Paul Whelan stands inside a defendants' cage during a court hearing in Moscow on October 24, 2019.
Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters/FILE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone Wednesday with American Paul Whelan, who is being held in a remote prison camp in Russia, a source familiar told CNN.
The top US diplomat told Whelan to “keep the faith and we’re doing everything we can to bring you home as soon as possible,” the source said of the call. This is the second time Blinken has spoken to Whelan, who has been detained in Russia for more than four years, the source said.
Whelan told his parents that “he was able to have a long, frank conversation with Secretary Blinken,” his brother David Whelan told CNN. David Whelan did not have further details about the call.
Whelan, who is deemed wrongly detained by the US government, is able to make calls from his prison camp in Mordovia, but the source would not get into further details about how the call to Blinken came about.
The conversation comes as the Biden administration continues to reiterate to Russia the serious proposal that it put on the table for Whelan’s release more than eight months ago. Russia has not responded in a substantive way, two administration officials told CNN.
Despite the Whelan proposal “absolutely” still being one that the US considers a live offer, explained one senior administration official, the lack of a substantive Russian response – along with the wrongful detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich earlier this year – has forced the US to continue efforts to search for another offer to put on the table.
The senior administration official said that it “remains a necessity that we figure out how to resolve this.”
“If we can't make it happen based on what's available to us now, we'll need to figure out what that takes so we can bring our people home,” the official said.
Both
Whelan and Gerschkovich have been designated as
wrongfully detained by the US government.