Biden trades Brittney Griner for a Russian arms dealer: “He’s on his way home”

The President of the USA, Joe Biden, has tweeted it as a complete success; the russians have freed the american basketball player Brittney Griner, sentenced to 9 years in prison in Russia for drug possession and smuggling, and is “on her way home.” The release of the young woman has not come free; Russia sends her home by trading her for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Brittney was an inalienable target for the president of the United States. So much so that the possibility of releasing other Americans who have been imprisoned for several years by order of the Kremlin has been left behind, at a time of serious tension between the two powers over the war in Ukraine.

Russia released WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a “dramatic” high-level prisoner swap, in which the Americans released notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, at a heavy price for the US. USA, because it recovers the athlete, in exchange for great sacrifices.

The young athlete is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and her imprisonment on drug charges has placed an unprecedented spotlight on all prisoners baselessly arrested abroad.

This is the second such exchange in the last eight months with Russia, but it has been quite dramatic and has put a lot of pressure on the White House to get the young woman released, following the resolution of her criminal case and her transfer to a penal colony in Russia. In exchange, a special authorization from President Biden has been required to release a Russian criminal dubbed “the merchant of death.”

Read also: The Russian prison where the American basketball player Brittney Griner will serve her sentence

Biden himself confirmed the success of the exchange by assuring that he had spoken with the released woman by phone in the presence of his wife, Cherellenext to him in the oval room when the president spoke with the released woman by phone: “A few moments ago I spoke with Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” the US president tweeted to confirm the news.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has also confirmed the exchange in a statement issued by Russian news agencies, where they claim that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi and that Bout was transferred home.

This prison diplomatic success occurred after months of tense and complicated negotiations, which have been resolved once the US mid-term elections were over. For their part, Russian authorities also showed their optimism about the possibility that the release of the young basketball player would take place before the following New Year’s Eve arrived.

Read also: Basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to 9 years in prison in Russia for drug possession

The Russian released is Viktor Bout, a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel once described by the Justice Department as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers, who was serving a 25-year sentence on charges of conspiring to sell dozens of millions of dollars in weapons that would end up being shot at American lives, according to the investigation of the agencies involved.

Who has been left out of the exchange has been Paul Whelana Michigan corporate security executive jailed in Russia in December 2018 on espionage charges that both his family and the US government say are baseless.

A few bottles of cannabis in the suitcase

Griner was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in February 2022, when customs officials said they found vape canisters filled with cannabis oil in her luggage. She admitted her guilt and maintained that the possession of the drug was the result of a mistake due to haste when packing.

From the first moment his lawyers and his compatriots have insisted on the exaggeration of the punishment given the lightness of the crime. From the first moment the young woman apologized “for the mistake I made and the shame I caused them. I hope that her decision will not end my life,” she came to assure her. But for Russia the girl was a treasure.

The case has been truly special and explosive for the public opinion that made her the highest profile American imprisoned outside her country. Added to her popularity as an athlete was her status as an openly gay black woman.

Precisely, the danger posed to her by being locked up in a country where the authorities are hostile to the LBGTQ community has given rise to racial, gender and social mobilizations, which has made her fate a matter of international importance, and a hot potato for the Biden administration.