On Thursday. 8th December 2022, president of the United States Joe Biden shared that the American basketball player Brittney Griner has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia and is on her way back to the USA. Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was released in exchange for the WNBA star Griner. According to a report by Reuters, the Russian foreign ministry confirmed that the swap took place at an airport in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Addressing reporters at the White House, Joe Biden said, “She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home after months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances and she will arrive within the next 24 hours.” He added, “This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release. 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.”
The 32-year-old sportsperson is a player for the Women’s National Basketball Association’s team Phoenix Mercury. She was arrested on February 17 this year on drug smuggling charges at an airport in Moscow. Notwithstanding her statement that Despite her excuse that the cannabis oil discovered in her suitcase was there by ‘mistake’, she was sentenced to nine years in jail in early August and was transferred to a Mordovia republic penal colony in mid-November after having lost her petition.
Negotiations to obtain her release were hampered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and the consequent deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow. The trade was one of the most high-profile and unusual examples of Washington-Moscow collaborations since the Russia-Ukraine war.
Clarifying the situation about another prisoner in Russia, former US Marine Paul Whelan, Biden noted in his address that Whelan’s family “must be experiencing such mixed feelings today.” He said, “This was not a choice of which American to bring home. Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
A US official said that the Russians have made it clear that they would only deal for Griner and not for Whelan because each of their cases had been handled differently by Russia.
