Kremlin ‘open to talks’ on prisoner exchange for jailed US sports star

THE Kremlin has said that it is open to talking about a possible prisoner exchange involving American basketball star Brittney Griner but strongly warned Washington against publicising the issue.

Griner, a two-time US Olympic champion and an eight-time all-star with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, has been detained in Russia since

February 17 after police at Moscow’s airport said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. A judge convicted the 31-year-old athlete on Thursday of drug possession and smuggling, and sentenced her to nine years in jail.

The politically-charged case comes amid high tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s

military action in Ukraine. In an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke last week to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, urging him to accept a deal under which Griner and Paul Whelan, an American jailed in Russia on espionage charges, would go free. Mr Lavrov and Mr Blinken were both in Cambodia on Friday for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Mr Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to discuss” a prisoner swap but that the topic should only be discussed via a dedicated Russia-US channel that US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to establish when they met in Geneva in June 2021.