US President Joe Biden stated that he has not seen any movement from Russian President Vladimir Putin to release US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner.
“Not by Putin,” Biden said when asked if he had seen any action in Griner’s case.
The US president said he would be willing to meet Putin at the upcoming G20 summit in Indonesia if he was willing to discuss the basketball player’s release.
“I have no intention of meeting him. But for example, if he came to me at the G20 and said I want to talk about the release of Griner, I would meet with him. I mean, it will depend,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, Biden told reporters Wednesday that the latest Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure were brutal and “beyond pale.”
A Kremlin aide responded to Biden by saying he “doesn’t intend to meet” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying on Wednesday that Moscow “never rejects negotiations and any useful international contact.”
“We never return an extended hand. If we feel and understand that a partner for one reason or another does not want to meet, we do not impose,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.
When asked if Putin would attend the G20 summit in November in Indonesia, Ushakov said “there is still a lot of time to decide.”