The White House is keeping open the communications channels with the Kremlin as it continues working to free Paul Whelan, who remains detained in Russia.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration is continuing to have "active conversations" with Russia to secure the release of the former U.S. Marine, according to Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs.
Kirby's disclosure follows a virtual Monday meeting Biden administration officials had with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, to discuss "next steps of the strategy" to bring him home, according to CNN.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that "with respect to the question of whether we’ve had engagement with the Russian Federation on the Whelan case, we will have an engagement with them this week."
"I won’t say more about it because we’re trying to keep that in sensitive channels, but that’s the timetable," Sullivan said at a White House briefing, according to CNN. "And we have had regular engagement, of course, along the way, and the next conversation at a high level will take place this week."
Describing the 45-minute-long meeting on Monday as a chance to regroup on her brother's case, Elizabeth Whelan told CNN she was able to share her ideas about moving forward with State Department and National Security Council officials.
"I am encouraged by their energy" she reportedly said.
The State Department confirmed to CNN that a meeting took place Monday but did not provide additional details.
"There was a meeting today with the Whelan family to go through the next steps of the strategy," a State Department spokesperson said. "But I think you can understand why we won’t detail those efforts publicly."
Sullivan called the conversations with Whelan’s family “substantive.”
"They have had a number of very good questions and also a number of suggestions that they’ve put forward," he said, according to CNN. "And we have been working to figure out what it is going to take to ultimately secure his freedom and how we can go about getting that and being able to sit down with the Russians and work out a deal."
Arrested in Moscow in December 2018, Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage. The White House was unable to free him when it exchanged detained WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
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