WASHINGTON Dec 12 The U.S. State Department vowed to be inventive and relentless for the return home of US citizen Paul Whelan, convicted in Russia for espionage. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday.
«We will be resourceful, we will be tireless in working with Paul Whelan, his family and loved ones … to do everything possible to resolve his issue as soon as possible,» — he told reporters.
Price noted that the United States has a «proper channel» of communications with Russia, which has been working since the meeting of the presidents of the two countries in June 2021 in Geneva.
Whelan was detained in Moscow at the end of 2018 during, as reported by the FSB, a spy action. The defense claims that the American was the victim of a provocation: he was given a flash card, on which he allegedly expected to see a photo from a tourist trip to Sergiev Posad near Moscow. The defendant himself in the last word said that he was not engaged in espionage. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and sent to serve his sentence in a colony in Mordovia.