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WNBA
star
Griner
freed in
swap for
Russian
arms
dealer
Bout
By ERIC
TUCKER,
MATTHEW
LEE
and ZEKE
MILLER
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- Russia
freed
WNBA
star
Brittney
Griner
on
Thursday
in a
dramatic
prisoner
exchange,
as the
U.S.
released
notorious
Russian
arms
dealer
Viktor
Bout but
failed
to win
freedom
for
another
American,
Paul
Whelan,
who has
been
jailed
for
nearly
four
years.
The
swap, at
a time
of
heightened
tensions
over
Ukraine,
achieved
a top
goal for
President
Joe
Biden
but
carried
a heavy
price.
“She’s
safe,
she’s on
a plane,
she’s on
her way
home,”
Biden
said
from the
White
House,
where he
was
accompanied
by
Griner’s
wife,
Cherelle,
and
administration
officials.
The
deal,
the
second
such
exchange
in eight
months
with
Russia,
procured
the
release
of the
most
prominent
American
detained
abroad.
Griner
is a
two-time
Olympic
gold
medalist
whose
monthslong
imprisonment
on drug
charges
brought
unprecedented
attention
to the
population
of
wrongful
detainees.
Biden’s
authorization
to
release
a
Russian
felon
once
nicknamed
“the
Merchant
of
Death”
underscored
the
escalating
pressure
that his
administration
faced to
get
Griner
home,
particularly
after
the
recent
resolution
of her
criminal
case and
her
subsequent
transfer
to a
penal
colony.
The
Russian
Foreign
Ministry
also
confirmed
the
swap,
saying
in a
statement
carried
by
Russian
news
agencies
that the
exchange
took
place in
Abu-Dhabi
and that
Bout has
been
flown
home
Russian
and U.S.
officials
had
conveyed
cautious
optimism
in
recent
weeks
after
months
of
strained
negotiations,
with
Biden
saying
in
November
that he
was
hopeful
that
Russia
would
engage
in a
deal now
that the
midterm
elections
were
completed.
A top
Russian
official
said
last
week
that a
deal was
possible
before
year’s
end.
Even so,
the fact
that the
deal was
a
one-for-one
swap was
a
surprise
given
that
U.S.
officials
had for
months
expressed
their
their
determination
to bring
home
both
Griner
and Paul
Whelan,
a
Michigan
corporate
security
executive
jailed
in
Russia
since
December
2018 on
espionage
charges
that his
family
and the
U.S.
government
has said
are
baseless.
“We’ve
not
forgotten
about
Paul
Whelan,”
Biden
said.
“We will
keep
negotiating
in good
faith
for
Paul’s
release.”
Whelan’s
brother
David
said in
a
statement
he was
“so
glad”
for
Griner’s
release
but also
disappointed
for his
family.
He
credited
the
White
House
with
giving
the
Whelan
family
advance
notice
and said
he did
not
fault
officials
for
making
the
deal.
“The
Biden
Administration
made the
right
decision
to bring
Ms.
Griner
home,
and to
make the
deal
that was
possible,
rather
than
waiting
for one
that
wasn’t
going to
happen,”
he said.
In
releasing
Bout,
the U.S.
freed a
a former
Soviet
Army
lieutenant
colonel
whom the
Justice
Department
once
described
as one
of the
world’s
most
prolific
arms
dealers.
Bout,
whose
exploits
inspired
a
Hollywood
movie,
was
serving
a
25-year
sentence
on
charges
that he
conspired
to sell
tens of
millions
of
dollars
in
weapons
that U.S
officials
said
were to
be used
against
Americans.
The
Biden
administration
was
ultimately
willing
to
exchange
Bout if
it meant
Griner’s
freedom.
The
detention
of one
of the
greatest
players
in WNBA
history
contributed
to a
swirl of
unprecedented
public
attention
for an
individual
detainee
case —
not to
mention
intense
pressure
on the
White
House.
Griner’s
arrest
in
February
made her
the most
high-profile
American
jailed
abroad.
Her
status
as an
openly
gay
Black
woman,
locked
up in a
country
where
authorities
have
been
hostile
to the
LBGTQ
community,
infused
racial,
gender
and
social
dynamics
into her
legal
saga and
made
each
development
a matter
of
international
importance.
Her case
not only
brought
unprecedented
publicity
to the
dozens
of
Americans
wrongfully
detained
by
foreign
governments,
but it
also
emerged
as a
major
inflection
point in
U.S.-Russia
diplomacy
at a
time of
deteriorating
relations
prompted
by
Moscow’s
war
against
Ukraine.
The
exchange
was
carried
out
despite
deteriorating
relations
between
the
powers.
But the
imprisonment
of
Americans
produced
a rare
diplomatic
opening,
yielding
the
highest-level
known
contact
between
Washington
and
Moscow —
a phone
call
between
Secretary
of State
Antony
Blinken
and
Russian
Foreign
Minister
Sergey
Lavrov —
in more
than
five
months.
In an
extraordinary
move
during
otherwise
secret
negotiations,
Blinken
revealed
publicly
in July
that the
U.S. had
made a
“substantial
proposal”
to
Russia
for
Griner
and
Whelan.
Though
he did
not
specify
the
terms,
people
familiar
with it
said the
U.S. had
offered
Bout.
Such a
public
overture
drew a
chiding
rebuke
from the
Russians,
who said
they
preferred
to
resolve
such
cases in
private,
and
carried
the risk
of
weakening
the U.S.
government’s
negotiating
hand for
this and
future
deals by
making
the
administration
appear
too
desperate.
But the
announcement
was also
meant to
communicate
to the
public
that
Biden
was
doing
what he
could
and to
ensure
pressure
on the
Russians.
Besides
the
efforts
of U.S.
officials,
the
release
also
followed
months
of back
channel
negotiations
involving
Bill
Richardson,
the
former
U.S.
ambassador
to the
United
Nations
and a
frequent
emissary
in
hostage
talks,
and his
top
deputy,
Mickey
Bergman.
Griner
was
arrested
at the
Moscow’s
Sheremetyevo
Airport
in
February
when
customs
officials
said
they
found
vape
canisters
with
cannabis
oil in
her
luggage.
She
pleaded
guilty
in July,
though
still
faced
trial
because
admitting
guilt in
Russia’s
judicial
system
does not
automatically
end a
case.
She
acknowledged
in court
that she
possessed
the
canisters,
but said
she had
no
criminal
intent
and said
their
presence
in her
luggage
was due
to hasty
packing.
Before
being
sentenced
on Aug.
4 and
receiving
a
punishment
her
lawyers
said was
out of
line for
the
offense,
an
emotional
Griner
apologized
“for my
mistake
that I
made and
the
embarrassment
that I
brought
on
them.”
She
added:
“I hope
in your
ruling
it does
not end
my
life.”
Her
supporters
had
largely
stayed
quiet
for
weeks
after
her
arrest,
but that
approach
changed
in May
once the
State
Department
designated
her as
unlawfully
detained.
A
separate
trade,
Marine
veteran
Trevor
Reed for
Konstantin
Yaroshenko,
a
Russian
pilot
convicted
in the
U.S. in
a
cocaine
trafficking
conspiracy,
spurred
hope
that
additional
such
exchanges
could be
in the
works.
Whelan
has been
held in
Russia
since
December
2018.
The U.S.
government
also
classified
him as
wrongfully
detained.
He was
sentenced
in 2020
to 16
years in
prison.
Whelan
was not
included
in the
Reed
prisoner
swap,
escalating
pressure
on the
Biden
administration
to
ensure
that any
deal
that
brought
home
Griner
also
included
him.
____
Associated
Press
writers
Colleen
Long and
Aamer
Madhani
contributed
to this
report.
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