• The United States has made a ‘substantial offer’ to Russia to release two Americans held in Russia.
• The Secretary of State says he will talk to Russia’s foreign minister about the issue next week.
• Reports say that Moscow wants to trade Brittney Griner for arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The United States has made a “substantial offer” to bring two Americans being held in Russia back to the US, according to the country’s top diplomat.

Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said he would talk to Russia’s foreign minister about the issue next week.

United States media reports say that Moscow wants to trade basketball star Brittney Griner for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, said that talks were still going on but that no deal had been made.

Mr. Peskov told Steve Rosenberg that he was surprised to hear about the reports and that he would not say anything until “after an agreement has been carried out”

Even though Mr. Blinken said he would talk to Mr. Lavrov, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry told the state-owned news agency that they did not know of any planned call.

Since the war in Ukraine began, Mr. Blinken and Sergei Lavrov haven’t talked.

Wednesday, neither the White House nor the State Department said anything about the proposed deal.

The United States wants to trade Bout for Ms. Griner and Paul Whelan, another American who was found guilty of spying in 2020.

Reports say that the US offered to trade Bout for Ms. Griner and Whelan with Russia last month, and that President Joe Biden agreed to the deal.

A lawyer for Bout told the Russian news site that he couldn’t say anything about rumours about a possible exchange with his client, but that “this could change soon”

Alla, Bout’s wife, told that neither she nor her husband knew about plans to trade prisoners.

The arms dealer, who was called “the merchant of death,” is in prison in the US serving a 25-year sentence for trying to sell weapons to a Colombian rebel group that would be used to kill Americans.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House, said that an offer had been made “several weeks ago” but that Russia had not “favourably engaged so far” yet.

He also said that talks to get the two out of jail were “delicate work” and that it was risky to tell the public about the proposal.

“It’s not going to help us get them home if we’re negotiating in public,” he said.

Mr. Kirby also said that a White House official had talked to the Whelan and Griner families before Mr. Blinken’s announcement and that they would talk again in the next 48 hours.

The deal would be the first concrete step the US government would take to get Ms. Griner out of jail.

The 31-year-old has been in jail since February, when officials at the Moscow airport found cannabis oil in her luggage. She was going back to the US after playing in Russia.

At her trial for drug possession on Wednesday, Ms. Griner said, “no-one explained any of it to me”

She also said that in the first hours of her detention, she was not told what her rights were or given access to a lawyer. Instead, she had to use a translation app on her phone to talk to people.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist pleaded guilty to drug charges, but she said she didn’t do it on purpose because she was in a hurry to pack her bags.

“I still don’t understand to this day how [the vape cartridges] ended up in my bags,” said Ms. Griner.

“With them being accidentally in my bags, I take responsibility, but I did not intend to smuggle or plan to smuggle anything into Russia.”

Her detention has been extended until December, and her trial, which is moving slowly, will continue in August.

In December 2018, Whelan, a former US Marine, was arrested in Moscow. He has been sent to prison for 16 years.

The US has said that it thinks Russia is holding Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan against their will.

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