Negotiator Bill Richardson said he believes Russian leader Vladimir Putin didn’t want to give U.S President Joe Biden “the victory” of a “two-for-two” swap.
Brittney Griner negotiator Bill Richardson has expressed his sadness that Paul Whelan didn’t come home together with the basketball star, adding that he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin overruled his advisers at the end of negotiations, dismissing a “two-for-two” exchange of prisoners.
“I was sad that Paul Whelan was not part of it. I’ve been for four years trying to find formulas to get Paul back, but it always seems that, at the very end, there’s a roadblock,” Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told CBC on Friday.
“I thought there would a be a ‘two-for-two’ exchange, Paul Whelan and Brittney for [Viktor] Bout, the Russian arms dealer, and somebody else, but at the last minute, I think President Putin decided, ‘No, it’s going to be ‘one for one’ or nothing.
