The US said earlier this month that Russia recently rejected a "substantial offer" to free two Americans, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelan. According to Vladimir Putin, however, he's still open-minded on striking a deal, noting during his annual end-of-year presser on Thursday that he hopes to "find a solution" on the two detained Americans, reports CBS News. "We have contacts on this matter with our American partners, there's a dialogue on this issue," Putin said, per the AP. "It's not easy."
The Russian president declined to get into the minutiae of these conversations, but said "in general, it seems to me that we're speaking a language each of us understands." The Journal notes that these are Putin's first public comments on Gershkovich. Gershkovich has been in Russian custody since March, when he was detained and accused of espionage; his fourth appeal to be released pretrial was rejected on Thursday by a Moscow court. Whelan has been detained since December 2018, also on espionage charges. Both men deny those charges.
The US, however, isn't so sure that Putin's conciliatory-sounding declarations are on the up-and-up. "We would welcome them negotiating in good faith," State Department rep Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday, per the Journal, but "if Vladimir Putin is serious about this, all he has to do is look at the proposals that we have made to secure their release, which were significant proposals that were made in good faith and, I think, showed the willingness and the determination of the United States to bring both Paul and Evan home." Miller added, "We very much want a deal." (More Evan Gershkovich stories.)
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