No Illusions: US State Department on Blinken-Lavrov Meeting

The conversation between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the G20 meeting in India lasted eight minutes, and no future engagements with Moscow are planned. This was announced during a press briefing by State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

“It was an eight-minute interaction, quite brief,” Price said. According to him, Washington has “no illusions that such a brief interaction can change Russia’s position in the foreseeable future or right now.”

As for further communications with Moscow, Price noted that the US does not expect high-level interactions in the near future; however, the US leadership remains open to dialogue.

On March 2, Secretary Blinken and Minister Lavrov had a brief conversation during the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting. This encounter marked the first high-level Russian-American meeting in recent months.

A senior official from the American delegation stated that Blinken intended to convey three messages to Lavrov: Moscow should withdraw its decision to exit the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty, must release American citizen Paul Whelan, and engage in further discussions.

According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, the conversation took place at Blinken's request. This was the first interaction between Blinken and Lavrov since the summer of 2022, when the US Secretary called his Russian counterpart to discuss Washington's proposal to release Paul Whelan and basketball player Brittney Griner.