Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a brief encounter with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in India, their first in-person meeting since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.
The top U.S. diplomat pressed Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to move toward a peace deal with Ukraine and advocated for U.S. citizens detained by Moscow, a Biden administration official said on Thursday.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry played down the interaction, saying the two conversed briefly at Blinken’s request on the sidelines of the G-20 session, underlining that the contact didn’t qualify as “talks or a meeting,” according to Interfax.
