US President Biden frees Russian arms vendor in trade for a WNBA participant arrested in Russia for smuggling medicine

On Thursday. eighth December 2022, president of the United States Joe Biden shared that the American basketball participant Brittney Griner has been launched in a prisoner swap with Russia and is on her means again to the USA. Russian arms vendor Viktor Bout was launched in trade for the WNBA star Griner. According to a report by Reuters, the Russian international ministry confirmed that the swap befell at an airport in Abu Dhabi within the United Arab Emirates.

Addressing reporters on the White House, Joe Biden stated, “She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home after months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances and she will arrive within the next 24 hours.” He added, “This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release. After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones, and she should have been there all along.”

The 32-year-old sportsperson is a participant for the Women’s National Basketball Association’s crew Phoenix Mercury. She was arrested on February 17 this 12 months on drug smuggling fees at an airport in Moscow. Notwithstanding her assertion that Despite her excuse that the hashish oil found in her suitcase was there by ‘mistake’, she was sentenced to 9 years in jail in early August and was transferred to a Mordovia republic penal colony in mid-November after having misplaced her petition.

Negotiations to acquire her launch had been hampered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and the ensuing deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow. The commerce was one of the high-profile and strange examples of Washington-Moscow collaborations because the Russia-Ukraine warfare.

Clarifying the state of affairs about one other prisoner in Russia, former US Marine Paul Whelan, Biden famous in his tackle that Whelan’s household “must be experiencing such mixed feelings today.” He stated, “This was not a choice of which American to bring home. Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”

A US official stated that the Russians have made it clear that they’d solely deal for Griner and never for Whelan as a result of every of their instances had been dealt with in a different way by Russia.