Zisu continued, “Look, it’s no secret that they’ve wanted him back for several years now. They’ve been trying to get him back for decades. That’s not something they’ve ever kept a secret.” The US has offered Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the US, as part of a possible deal to secure the release of Griner and Whelan. But Russian officials have asked to include Vadim Krashikov, a former colonel in the country’s domestic intelligence service, in the proposed U.S. exchange of Bout for Griner and Whelan, multiple sources familiar with the discussions told CNN. Krasikov was convicted in December of killing a former Chechen fighter, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison. The request was considered problematic for several reasons, the sources told CNN, including that Krasikov remains in German custody. As such, and because the request was not officially communicated but rather through an FSB backchannel, the US government did not view it as a legitimate objection to the US offer first revealed by CNN on Wednesday. The National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, John Kirby, in an earlier interview with “New Day” called the Russian request a “bad faith attempt” and said the country should accept the US proposal. “This so-called, you call it a counteroffer, we would call it a bad faith attempt to avoid a serious proposal that is already on the table. ” Kirby told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Monday. “The detention of two Americans wrongfully held hostage for a convicted murderer in a third country is fair — we don’t see it as a serious counteroffer at all. It is nothing more than a bad faith attempt by the Russians to publicly avoid what is a serious proposal, which we are not detailing publicly and it has been on the books for several weeks and we urge the Russians to accept it.” On Friday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. Blinken said he “pressured the Kremlin to accept the substantial offer we made to release Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner.” At a news conference on Friday, he declined to say whether he thought Russia was more or less likely to go ahead with the proposal after the conversation, nor would he describe how Lavrov responded. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the call that Lavrov “strongly suggested” to Blinken that the United States should return to a mode of “quiet diplomacy” regarding a possible prisoner exchange “without dubious media leaks.” Before the conversation between Blinken and Lavrov, US officials had expressed frustration at Moscow’s lack of a substantive response to the proposal to release Whelan and Griner. State Department spokesman Ned Price acknowledged Thursday that “this has not moved as far as we would like.” CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Frederik Pleitgen and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
