Washington requested the conversation of State Secretary Anthony Blinken with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the exchange of convicts. This was stated by the official representative of the State Department of Ned Price.
“We requested a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov yesterday and we still hope that he will take place the other day,” he said.
According to him, in Moscow they confirmed the receipt of the request. He emphasized that the conversation will not be negotiations about Ukraine and the normalization of Russian-American interaction. Price called the three topics proposed by Washington: to discuss the problem of American citizens serving a sentence in Russia, to indicate support for agreements in Istanbul on the removal of restrictions on the supply of Russian products for export and the assistance of Russia to the export of Ukrainian grain and call for implementation, as well as to warn Ukrainian territories.