WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said he’d meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss the release of detained basketball star Brittney Griner, but would not talk with the Russian leader about resolving the war in Ukraine without Kyiv’s involvement.
“Look, I have no intention of meeting with him,” Biden said Tuesday in an interview with CNN. “But for example, if he came to me at the G-20 and said I want to talk about the release of Griner, I’d meet with him. I mean, it would depend.”
Biden and Putin are both expected to attend the Group of 20 summit in Bali next month.
The Biden administration has sought the release of the two-time Olympic gold medalist, who was convicted of drug possession and smuggling after customs officials found cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport.
The U.S. president said a possible meeting with Putin would depend “on specifically what he wanted to talk about” and that he wouldn’t discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without Ukrainian leaders present.
“I’m not about to, nor is anyone else prepared to, negotiate with Russia about them staying in Ukraine, keeping any part of Ukraine, et cetera,” Biden said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in August that the US had made a “substantial” proposal to Russia to secure Griner’s release, along with former US Marine Paul Whelan, who is being detained on espionage charges that he denies.
The Biden administration earlier proposed swapping Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the “merchant of death” who was sentenced to 25 years in 2012, and a second Russian also held in a U.S. jail, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Biden didn’t mention Whelan in his CNN interview.
In March, Biden said that Russia should be removed from the G-20 over its invasion of Ukraine, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be invited to the Bali summit. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday in an interview with state TV that the Kremlin would consider a proposal for Biden and Putin to meet.
