NEW DELHI – Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke briefly on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting in India on Thursday, the first meeting between top diplomats since Russia invaded Ukraine. .
Their meeting involved less than 10 minutes of discussion, a senior State Department official said in a background call with reporters.
Blinken urged Moscow to reverse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision last month to suspend New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers. He said the treaty is in the interests of both countries, as well as international security, and the world expects nations to behave responsibly when it comes to nuclear security.
The treaty was originally set to expire in February 2021, after the Trump administration failed to reach an agreement. But President Joe Biden struck a deal with Putin to extend New START by five years shortly after taking office. Last year, the United States and Russia pledged to create a new agreement «to achieve deeper, irreversible and verifiable reductions in their nuclear arsenals,» according to a joint statement.
Blinken also reiterated the need for the Kremlin to release «wrongfully detained» US citizen and former Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 on espionage charges that he and Washington have denied. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020. Blinken noted that the United States had tabled a proposal for his release and said Russia should accept it.
In addition, he underscored the United States’ continued support for Ukraine, including its proposals for a just and lasting peace that respects the United Nations Charter and Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the State Department official said. Blinken stressed that Ukraine and the US want Russia’s war to end on that basis, but a similar determination from Moscow remains lacking.
Blinken made it clear that decisions regarding Ukraine were left to Kiev and stressed that he and his team are committed to conveying and defending US interests through the appropriate channels, which must remain open.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that Blinken had asked to contact Lavrov and that they spoke «on the fly» during the second G20 session, but did not there were negotiations.
Blinken and Lavrov’s last meeting in person was last January in Geneva. Their last phone call occurred last July when they were discussing a proposed pitch for Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner.
The meeting between Blinken and Lavrov comes as Russian troops seek to seize the ruined city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in what would be their first major victory in more than half a year. Russia says seizing Bakhmut would allow it to fully control the rest of the strategic industrial region of eastern Donbas, one of the main targets of its invasion a year ago.
Abigail Williams reported from New Delhi. Summer Concepcion reported from New York.