WNBA star Griner’s detention in Moscow extended for 1 month
On the same day WNBA star Brittney Griner appeared in a Russian court — at a scheduling hearing that was moved up by six days and that resulted in another 30 days added to her pretrial detainment — Russia’s state news agency reported U.S. and Russian authorities are discussing a prisoner swap of Ms. Griner and convicted arms-smuggler Viktor Bout.
It was unclear whether the two developments — the expedited hearing and the report in TASS — were related. But they came 10 days after the Biden administration officially reclassified Ms. Griner’s arrest as a “wrongful detainment,” signaling U.S. officials would ramp up efforts to obtain her release rather than wait for the Russian legal system to play out.
Ms. Griner, a seven-time WNBA all-star for the Phoenix
Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was arrested in February at an airport outside Moscow. Russian authorities allege that she illegally brought vape cartridges containing hashish oil into the country, a crime that could carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Ms. Griner was returning
to Russia to rejoin UMMC Ekaterinburg, for which she plays during the WNBA offseason. Her lawyer, Alexander Boykov, told the Associated Press he believes the relatively short extension of her detainment could be a signal her case would come to trial soon.
In a statement provided to
The Washington Post on Friday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow attended Ms. Griner’s hearing and were able to speak with her, and that she is “doing as well as can be expected in these circumstances.”
“We do believe that we can best and most effectively achieve potentially successful outcomes if we do have space to conduct private conversations. We are closely engaged on this case and in frequent contact with Ms. Griner’s legal team.”
The State Department did not directly address a question about the veracity of the TASS report of a potential Griner-for-Bout swap, which has not been confirmed by any American news outlets.
However, experts on Russian-American relations cautioned the report should not be taken at face value and couldbe a ploy by the Kremlin to ramp up pressure on U.S. authorities.
“Bout has always been a high priority for Russia, so [the TASS report] doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Brian Whitmore, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and assistant professor at the University of Texas-Arlington’s McDowell Center for Global Studies. “My first reaction is it’s just signaling or wishfulthinking on the part of Russians. ... The question is what sort of signaling is the Kremlin doing here. A news report like that doesn’t appear in TASS by accident. They’re either trying to signal something, or something is really inthe works.”
Despite U.S.-Russia relations being at their lowest point since the Cold War, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the countries managed to carry out a surprise swap of prisoners last month, with former Marine Trevor Reed exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in U.S. federal courtof smuggling cocaine.
Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” is in the middle of a 25-year federal prison sentence for smuggling arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for use against U.S. forces. Arrested in Thailand in 2008 and expeditedto the U.S., Bout was convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials and providing aid to a terrorist organization.”
Earlier this month, the Biden administration characterized Ms. Griner’s arrest as a “wrongful detainment,” an official designation that indicates it will no longer wait for the WNBA star’s case to proceed through the Russian legal system and will take more aggressive steps to negotiate herrelease.
Many WNBA players play in the Russian Women’s Basketball Premier League during the WNBA offseason, both for financial reasons and for the chance to compete against the world’s top players.