“Griner’s Russian defense team learned about the US offer from the news… In any case, we would be very happy if Brittney can come home and we hope it will be soon,” said lawyers for WNBA star Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov. in a statement. “The defense team is not involved in exchange discussions,” the lawyers added. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters that the US had offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing back Griner and another imprisoned American, former Marine Paul Whelan. CNN and the New York Times reported that Washington was willing to exchange Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States, as part of a deal. Commenting on Blinken’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters Thursday that negotiations between Moscow and Washington on the prisoner exchange were ongoing but had not “led to concrete results.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “so far there are no agreements in this area.” Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February. She acknowledged in court earlier this month that she had vape containers containing cannabis oil when she arrived in Russia, but claims she had no criminal intent and the containers ended up in her luggage by accident. Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The next hearing is scheduled for August 2. “Legally, the exchange is only possible after a court order,” Griner’s lawyers said. Griner’s high-profile arrest also brought renewed attention to the plight of Whelan, a former US Marine who was held in a Moscow hotel in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later on espionage charges. Whelan has repeatedly denied the allegations against him. Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told the Guardian on Thursday that he believed Moscow wanted Bout to be part of a swap for his client. According to Zherebenkov, Russia in 2020 offered to swap Whelan for Bout and Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, an offer he claimed was rejected by the US. Zherebenkov said that at the time, an American diplomat met Whelan in prison and said the trade was “unrealistic because Russia is going to start kidnapping our citizens, impeaching them and then trading for them.” . Zerebenkov said he believed there would be a trade this time and was being realistic. “Now I think a trade is realistic because, as far as I understand, the Russian side has always been in favor of trade and in this case, that seems to be the American side’s position now.” Russian officials have repeatedly expressed interest in freeing Bout, an arms dealer once dubbed the “Death Merchant.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Bout’s wife, Alla, told the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday night that her husband was unaware that negotiations were taking place. “We spoke on the phone yesterday. Victor knows nothing about the negotiations between Russia and the USA. Of course, we assume that such talks could be a place of conversation… but we both have no information about the talks,” he said. If successful, Whelan and Griner’s prisoner swap would mark the second high-profile exchange between the two rivals this year. On April 27, Russia and the US conducted a prisoner swap exchanging former US Marine Trevor Reed for Yaroshenko, who was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
