Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to release detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich
on espionage charges. The White House and the Journal have denied those allegations.
Meanwhile, Russia has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, part of a routine annual cycle that was denounced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He noted that Russia was launching hundreds of strikes on his country while taking the council’s helm. The United States said there was no legal mechanism to alter Moscow’s status at the U.N.Key developments
Blinken also urged the Kremlin to “immediately release wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan,”, was convicted in Russia on espionage charges in 2020. His attorney said Whelan was set up.the Journal’s editor in chief, Emma Tucker, said in anSaturday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The designation would speed the process to try to free him, she said.
WNBA player Brittney Griner, who spent 10 months in Russian detention last year, called on the Biden administrationto secure Gershkovich’s release. The basketball star, who was released by Russian authorities in December, said she was concerned for Gershkovich and his family. “Every American who is taken is ours to fight for,”Russia failed to meet its objective of seizing the Luhansk and Donetsk regions by the end of March,.
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