Brittney Griner freed in prisoner swap in Russia
In a one-for-one prisoner swap with international arms dealer Viktor Bout, WNBA star Brittney Griner was released on Thursday, ending an ordeal that sparked intense high-level negotiations between the United States and the Kremlin to secure her release.
Griner was being held in Russian prisons for months on drug charges.
“She is secure. She is on plane. She’s on her way home.” President Biden announced the exchange at the White House.
“After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along. This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release.”
Griner was anticipated to land early on Friday in San Antonio, Texas.
Citing a U.S. official, CBS News was the first to report the swap, which took place in the United Arab Emirates.
According to people who are familiar with the deal, Mr. Biden gave his final approval to the exchange agreement that had been negotiated with Moscow just the previous week.
CBS News was informed last Thursday by five former U.S. officials that an agreement had been reached.
The president claimed that he called Griner from the Oval Office, where he was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Griner’s wife Cherelle. Per standard strategy for liberated U.S. detainees, Griner was supposed to go through a clinical assessment rapidly.
“Glad to be able to say Brittney is in good spirits,” Mr. Biden stated. “She didn’t ask for special treatment,” he said, dismissing the “show trial in Russia” that led to her imprisonment.
The president ordered Bout to be released and returned to Russia in order to secure Griner’s release. The commutation order, which reduced Bout’s 25-year federal prison sentence, was signed by Vice President Biden.
Paul Whelan, a retired Marine from the United States, is imprisoned in Russia as a result of the Griner-for-Bout exchange. Whelan has been held by the Russians for close to four years. He was found guilty of false espionage charges, which the United States has rejected.
Mr. Biden said on Thursday, “We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan,” and he added, “We will never give up” on securing his release.
One official stated that the United States had “a choice between bringing home one particular American — Brittney Griner — or bringing home none.”
U.S. officials told reporters that it became clear during negotiations with the Russians that the possibility of securing the release of both Griner and Whelan in exchange for Bout was a nonstarter.
“Greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up,” Whelan told CNN in a phone call on Thursday. He expressed his happiness that Griner was released, however.
In February, Phoenix Mercury star center Griner, 32, was detained at a Russian airport. She later pleaded guilty to charges related to the discovery of oil cartridges derived from cannabis in her luggage.
During the WNBA offseason, Griner traveled to Russia to play in a Russian basketball league. She admitted that she did not intend to bring the cartridges with her.
The one-for-one exchange, according to sources, came together over the last two weeks after five months of stalled diplomacy and various permutations of potential swap arrangements, including an unreported offer by the United States in the summer to send two prisoners back to Russia in exchange for the two Americans.
When Whelan was detained at a hotel in December 2018, he was in Moscow for a friend’s wedding. He had previously worked as a corporate security contractor.
He was later found guilty of espionage by Russian authorities, which the United States and Whelan denied. He was given a sentence of 16 years in prison. This month marks Whelan’s fourth anniversary of being held by the Russians.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) took Bout into custody in Thailand in 2008 as a result of a sting operation.
He was most recently incarcerated at a federal prison in Marion, Illinois. He started serving his 25-year sentence ten years after being found guilty of conspiring to kill Americans.
The beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February coincided with Griner’s arrest, which has complicated all U.S. interactions with the Kremlin.
Both Griner and Whelan have been accused of being “wrongfully detained” by the United States, and authorities have suspected that Russia has been using the American prisoners as leverage.
The Biden administration’s second prisoner swap with Russia is Griner’s return for Bout. Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine who had been imprisoned in Russia for nearly three years, was exchanged by the United States for Russian smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko in April. Yaroshenko had been found guilty of conspiring to import cocaine.
CBS News received word on Thursday that the Griner-for-Bout swap was on the way, but officials expressed grave concern about the deal’s fragility, so the White House requested that the news be delayed. CBS News agreed to the request.
Officials in the Biden administration warned that making the swap’s specifics public in advance would almost certainly cause Russia to renege on the agreement and put Griner’s safety in jeopardy.
