US ambassador to Russia visits Paul Whelan in jail

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The U.S. ambassador to Russia on Wednesday visited Paul Whelan, a former marine jailed on espionage charges, and reiterated that Washington was committed to bringing him home, the State Department said.

Arrested in 2018 in Russia, Whelan was convicted of espionage in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in a facility in Mordovia, a Russian region southeast of Moscow.

Both Whelan and the U.S. government have denied that he is a spy. Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone with Whelan.

"Ambassador Tracy did meet with Paul Whelan earlier today. It was a consular visit," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told a briefing.

"We believe Paul continues to show tremendous courage in the face of his wrongful detention. Ambassador Tracy reiterated to him that President (Joe) Biden and Secretary Blinken are committed to bring him home," Miller said.

Tracy has also made three visits in recent months to Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested in Russia in March and also faces spying charges he denies.

The Biden administration has carried out two prisoner swaps with Russia amid frosty bilateral ties due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Most recently, Washington secured the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in December 2022 in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Miller sidestepped questions about U.S. and British media reports saying Moscow wants Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted of the 2019 murder of a Chechen dissident in Berlin, to be included in a potential swap for Whelan.

The Biden administration has designated Whelan and Gershkovich as "wrongfully detained," meaning it considers the charges to be baseless and that the pair were targeted primarily because they are American citizens.

Whelan was seen late last month in a rare video broadcast by a Kremlin-backed news channel.

(Writing by Felix Light, Gareth Jones and David Ljunggren; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Mark Porter)