The United States and Russia have conducted a high-level prisoner swap involving businessman Viktor Bout and professional women's basketball player Brittney Griner.
“Russia has released U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a prisoner exchange, authorities said, spurring messages of relief from U.S. officials, supporters and Griner’s loved-ones who for months had pushed for her return to the United States.
Russia’s foreign ministry said she had been traded for Viktor Bout, a Russian former arms dealer jailed in the United States. The exchange took place at Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, Russian news agencies reported.
Griner, 32, a star of the Phoenix Mercury at the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), was arrested on February 17th at a Moscow airport when cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, were found in her luggage.
Her detention came days before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th invasion, as ties between Washington and Moscow came under further strain.
Throughout her time in Russian custody, Griner’s relatives, teammates and supporters called on the U.S. government to put its full weight behind the case to secure her release.
She was sentenced on August 4th to nine years in prison on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs. She had pleaded guilty, but said she had made an ‘honest mistake’ and had not meant to break the law.
Her lawyers described the sentence as excessive, stressing that it does not ‘correspond to the gravity of the crime’.
Last month she was taken to a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia to serve her sentence.
Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer, was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in a U.S. jail after he was accused of arming rebel groups in some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts.
Moscow said it had been negotiating with Washington to secure Bout’s release ‘for a long time’ and that initially the U.S. had ‘refused dialogue’ on including him in any swap.
‘Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work to rescue our compatriot. The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland’, the defence ministry said.
Variously dubbed ‘the merchant of death’ and ‘the sanctions buster’ for his ability to get around arms embargoes, Bout, 55, was one of the world’s most wanted men before his arrest.
Some U.S. Republicans criticized the swap deal on Thursday, citing Bout’s notoriety”. -Al Jazeera
Donald Trump questioned in a post on his website Truth Social why make a deal to swap Brittney Griner, an openly unpatriotic basketball player, for a man known as ‘the merchant of death’, who is one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the world.
“Why wasn't former Marine Paul Whelan included in this totally one-sided transaction? What a ‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA” -Donald Trump
I care about as much about Bout’s release as I do about Griner’s return. In a nutshell, I care nothing whatsoever.
It wouldn’t come as a surprise to discover that this entire exchange was purely an exhibition of political theater designed to undermine Russian-U.S. relations even further.
At this point, whatever behooves the Russians in their struggle against the cosmopolitan, neocolonial West benefits the American public also. It would be better for us to suffer under the illiberal rule of the U.S. and its NATO allies for them to give up global hegemony than to have the Russian Federation be forced to submit itself to the dictates of either Washington or Brussels.