US offers Russia a deal to release Brittney Griner from the WNBA

US offers Russia a deal to release Brittney Griner from the WNBA

The United States has offered Russia a deal aimed at returning WNBA star Brittney Griner and another imprisoned American, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Paul Whelan said on Wednesday.

In a radical departure from previous policy, Blinken also said he was looking forward to speaking with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the deal and other issues.

Blinken’s comments were the first time the US government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and testified at his trial on Wednesday. fair. He did not elaborate on the proposed deal with the Russians, although a person familiar with the matter said the US government had offered to trade Russian arms dealer Victor Bout for Whelan and Griner.

The person insisted on anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

While it’s unclear whether the proposal will be enough for Russia to free the Americans, the public acceptance of the offer at a time when the United States has turned away from Russia reflects mounting pressure on the administration on Griner and Whelan and their decision. . at home.

It also points to the White House’s growing acceptance of the prisoner exchange as a solution to cases of Americans stranded abroad, especially after the exchange in April that secured the release of Navy veteran Trevor Reed and a much-needed public victory for the administration.

“We put a substantial proposal on the table a few weeks ago to facilitate its launch,” said Blinken. “Our governments have spoken repeatedly and directly about this proposal and I will use the conversation to continue personally and hopefully lead us to a solution.”

President Joe Biden, who approved Reed’s prisoner exchange after meeting with his parents, signed the deal the United States offered in the case, officials said.

“The president and his team are prepared to take extraordinary steps to bring them home,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

If the call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is completed, it will be the first since February 15, about a week before Russia invades Ukraine. US officials said the desire to respond to the prisoner’s offer was the main but not the only reason why the US requested another call with Lavrov on Wednesday.

Blinken said he also spoke to Lavrov about the importance of Russia complying with a UN-brokered deal to release tons of Ukrainian grain from warehouses and warning him of possible Russian attempts to annex parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.

“It’s helpful to send clear and direct messages to the Russians about our top priorities,” he said, including the firing of Griner and Whelan. They also include “what we see and hear around the world is a desperate need for food, a desperate need to lower prices.”

Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison on espionage charges. He and his family vigorously maintained their innocence. The US government denounced the allegations as false.

Griner, who has been in Russian custody for the past five months after authorities said they found cartridges containing hemp oil in his luggage, testified in court on Wednesday that he had no criminal intent to bring them into the country and packed them at hurry. for the WNBA’s offseason return to the Russian Basketball League.

During the deposition, the Phoenix Mercury standout said he still doesn’t know how hemp oil ended up in his luggage, but explained that he had a medical recommendation to use it to treat chronic pain from sports injuries.

He said he was taken aside at the airport after inspectors found the cartridges, but a language interpreter translated only a small part of what he said during interrogation and authorities forced him to sign documents without explanation.

Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of drug trafficking.

US officials have been trying for months to deflect criticism of the apparent lack of momentum in the Griner and Whelan cases, saying the work was done in secret and out of public view. That stance made Wednesday’s announcement even more surprising, but Kirby said the administration is determined to make it clear that a deal is on the table.

“We think it’s important that the American people know how hard President Biden is working to bring Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan home,” he said.

Russia has for years expressed an interest in freeing Bout, a Russian arms dealer once dubbed the “Merchant of Death”, sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges of planning millions of dollars in illegal arms sales. Advocates for his release argue that he was arrested after an overly aggressive US raid, and the judge who sentenced him told the Associated Press this month that he believed he had already served enough time in prison.

The US government has long opposed prisoner exchanges because they can encourage hostage-taking and promote a false equivalence between an illegally detained American and a justly convicted alien. But an earlier deal in April, in which Reed negotiated imprisoned Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, appears to open the door to similar deals in the future. The Biden administration also faced political pressure to illegally detain Griner and other Americans.

There was no indication that Blinken and Lavrov were linked to Reid’s dismissal. His last publicly acknowledged contact was on February 22, when Blinken wrote to Lavrov to cancel a meeting they had planned as a last-ditch effort to prevent a Russian invasion, saying that Moscow had shown no interest in serious diplomacy on the matter. The State Department later said that Russian diplomacy was “kabuki theater,” all show business and insubstantial.

The last time they met in person in Geneva was in January to discuss what was then Russia’s massive military buildup along the Ukrainian border and Russia’s demands that NATO reduce its presence in Eastern Europe and permanently reject membership. from Ukraine. The United States rejected Russia’s demands.

The two men will be in the same city next week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where they will both attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum. It was not immediately clear whether the phone call ahead of the meeting, scheduled for Aug. 4 and 5, would involve a personal discussion.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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