US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had offered Russia a deal that would bring home Griner and another imprisoned American, Paul Whelan. A person familiar with the matter said the US government has offered to trade convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for Whelan and Griner. Asked about the US offer, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said prisoner swaps were usually negotiated discreetly behind the scenes. “We know that such issues are discussed without any such disclosure of information,” Peskov told reporters during a conference call. “Normally, the public finds out when the agreements have already been implemented.” He stressed that “no deal has been finalized” and declined to give further details. In a separate statement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russian and US officials were holding talks on possible prisoner exchanges and “there has been no concrete outcome yet.” “We proceed from the premise that the interests of both parties should be taken into account during negotiations,” Zakharova said. Blinken’s comments were the first time the US government has publicly disclosed any specific action it has taken to secure Griner’s release. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and player for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury was arrested at a Moscow airport in mid-February when inspectors found vapor cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. WATCHES | USA reveals moves to bring jailed basketball player home:
White House offers Russia deal to release basketball star Brittney Griner
The Biden administration says it has made a “substantial offer” to bring two American prisoners home from Russia, including basketball star Brittney Griner. In a sharp reversal of past policy, Blinken said he expected to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the proposed prisoner deal and other issues. It would be their first phone call since Russia sent troops into Ukraine. Russia has for years expressed interest in the release of Bout, a Russian arms dealer once described as the “Merchant of Death.” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges that he planned to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons. Griner’s trial on drug charges began in a court outside Moscow this month, and she testified Wednesday that she did not know how the cartridges ended up in her bag, but that she had a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis to treat career-related pain her. The 31-year-old pleaded guilty but said she had no criminal intent to bring the cartridges to Russia and rushed back to play in a Russian basketball league during the WNBA’s off-season. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of drug trafficking. On Wednesday, Griner testified that a language interpreter translated only part of what was said while she was being held at the Moscow airport and that officials told her to sign documents, but “nobody explained anything to me.” Griner also said that in addition to the poor translation, she received no explanation of her rights or access to a lawyer during the first few hours of her detention. She said she used a translation app on her phone to communicate with a customs officer. Her arrest came at a time of rising tensions between Moscow and Washington ahead of Russia’s February 24 deployment of troops to Ukraine. Griner’s five-month detention has drawn intense criticism among teammates and supporters in the United States. The Biden administration has faced political pressure to release Griner and other Americans the US has said are being “illegally detained” — a designation vehemently rejected by Russian officials. Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges in 2020. He and his family have strongly maintained his innocence. The US government has denounced the charges as false. Washington has long resisted prisoner swaps out of concern that they could encourage additional hostages and promote a false equivalence between a wrongfully imprisoned American and a foreign national deemed justly convicted. In April, however, the government struck a deal to swap veteran US Marine Trevor Reed for jailed Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
