U.S. must push for release of more prisoners

The people who become Vladimir Putin’s pawns never realize the vicious game ensnaring them. Until it’s too late.

WNBA star Brittney Griner made the mistake of possessing vape cartridges with a minuscule amount of cannabis oil as she traveled to Russia to play basketball in February. It resulted in a drug possession conviction that hardly warranted the nine-year sentence she began serving.

On Thursday, Griner’s unimaginable ordeal came to an end. A prisoner swap sent Griner on her way home in exchange for Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.” Griner’s return will surely be celebrated across America.

Not involved in the swap was former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive arrested in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges that the U.S. says were bogus. Whelan is imprisoned in Russia on a 16-year sentence.

We trust that President Joe Biden is working on his release just as earnestly and expeditiously as his administration toiled to secure Griner’s freedom. The Kremlin rejected Washington’s bid to include Whelan in the Griner-Bout swap; Moscow preferred a onefor-one exchange, as it did in April when it agreed to release former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed in order to secure the homecoming of a Russian pilot.

It’s an ugly game Putin plays, turning ordinary people into hostages he can stow away like poker chips. The price for Griner was steep. Washington has alleged that Bout’s arms clients have included al-Qaida and the Taliban. Back in 2001, the distinguished correspondent Paul Salopek wrote at length about Bout, . “Arms leader leaves bloody trail,” was the apt headline on Salopek’s deep dive into the life of a very dangerous man.

Bout was convicted in 2011 on charges that included conspiring to kill American citizens and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The U.S. has long suspected that Bout also had ties to Russia’s feared military intelligence agency, the GRU, which might explain the Kremlin’s fervent desire to return him to Russian soil.

Biden had no choice but to make the deal. The future Griner faced in Russia was harrowing. Doing time in American prisons may be tough, but life in Russian prisons is even harsher. There remains a gulag-like aura to the Russian penal system. In interviews, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon who angered Putin and spent 10 years in Russian prisons, talked of forced labor, potatoes and bread for dinner, and barracks holding as many as 150 inmates.

In prison, the 6-foot 9-inch Griner slept in a bed lengthened to accommodate her height, and shared a small cell with two inmates, The New York Times reported. She was allowed outside once a day for an hourlong walk in a small courtyard.

That’s all over now. Griner’s new future is a life back home with her wife, her family and friends, and perhaps sometime soon, back on the court. Griner already has two Olympic gold medals, and it would be America’s delight to see her vie for a third in Paris in 2024.

Biden deserves credit for Griner’s homecoming. In the meantime, however, the White House cannot waver in its mission to do the same for Whelan, who on Thursday told CNN via telephone, “I don’t know why I’m still here.”

The Biden administration should also take a closer look at the case of Marc Fogel, a Pennsylvania teacher whose case mirrors Griner’s. Earlier this year, a Russian court sentenced him to 14 years in prison after he was caught at a Moscow airport with medical marijuana in his luggage. The distinction that the administration makes is that it has deemed both Griner and Whelan as wrongfully detained, and has yet to apply that designation to Fogel. Biden’s team needs to investigate whether Fogel deserves the same status.

We expect Putin to reprehensibly treat Whelan, Fogel and any other American detained in Russia the same way he treated Griner — as a commodity, a bargaining chip.

Biden must do all he can to rescue Whelan and Fogel from Putin’s inhumanity.

It’s an ugly game Putin plays, turning ordinary people into hostages he can stow away like poker chips.