CNN
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Elizabeth Whelan – the sister of Paul Whelan, an American who has been detained in Russia for more than four years – will attend a UN Security Council meeting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to chair on Monday, according to two US officials.
She hopes to spotlight the human cost of Russia’s wrongful detention of US citizens, one of the many ways that Russia violates international norms, the officials said.
Lavrov arrives to address the international body as Russia continues its brutal invasion of Ukraine, and less than a month after Russia detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. The US State Department has designated both Gershkovich and Whelan as wrongfully detained.
Russia, which holds the presidency of the Security Council this month, scheduled the meeting to highlight the principles of the UN charter. Each month the Security Council’s presidency rotates among the 15 members.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield has described Russia’s Security Council presidency this month as “an April Fool’s joke.” She said the US would move to push back on Russia seeking to use its presidency to spread disinformation.
“As Russia takes on the presidency of the Security Council, we will use every opportunity to push back on their using their perch in the chair to spread disinformation, and to use their chair to push support of their efforts,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
She spoke with her Russian counterpart at the UN earlier this month to express the US demand that Gershkovich be released immediately.
The US government was unable to secure Whelan’s release last year when it brought home two other Americans who had been wrongfully detained in Russia – Trevor Reed in April and Brittney Griner in December. Elizabeth Whelan has urged the Biden administration to do more to free her brother.
“Paul Whelan deserves better than he is getting for results. He has the White House attention to his case and now he needs the White House to get the job done,” she said in a video posted to Facebook earlier this month.
Elizabeth Whelan also said that her family has “repeatedly seen the US government talk about lines beyond which they will not go to bring Paul Whelan back to Michigan.” But she said that such lines had been “erased” to bring Reed and Griner home.
As tensions continue to rise between Russia and the US, Lavrov and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have no plans to meet on the sidelines of Monday’s meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Sunday, according to RIA, a Russian state-owned domestic news agency.
“There are no such plans. By and large, we do not have an agenda with the Americans for discussion at the ministerial level at the moment,” the deputy minister told reporters, according to RIA’s reporting.
