President Joe Biden will not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit next month — even to discuss the release of American basketball star Brittney Griner — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing on Wednesday.
Biden “has no intention of meeting with President Putin,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a reporter’s question about whether the White House has been in communication with Moscow about such a meeting.
The president strongly believes “that the Russians need to take the serious offer that we put forward on the table, or make a serious counter-offer to negotiate, but in good faith,” Jean-Pierre said, reiterating, “he has no intention of meeting with Vladimir Putin.”
In an interview that aired on Tuesday, Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper he had no plan to meet with the Russian leader, but would make an exception if Putin was open to discussing Griner’s release.
“Look, I have no intention of meeting with him,” Biden said. “But for example, if he came to me at the G-20 and said, ‘I want to talk about the release of Griner,’ I’d meet with him. I mean, it would depend.”
Griner, who was arrested in February after Russian authorities found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison in August. She appealed the verdict shortly after, and a Russian court set her appeal date for Oct. 25.
