Basketball star Brittney Griner has been involved in a prisoner swap exchange, meaning she is returning to the United States
After months of painstaking negotiations with Moscow, it became clear to President Joe Biden’s administration that it faced a grave choice – to exchange notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner or else get no American to bring home.
The move was approved personally by Biden, came together in the past 48 hours, U.S. officials said, sending Griner from a Russian penal colony to Moscow and then to an airport in the United Arab Emirates.
Excluded from the deal was another high-profile U.S. detainee, Paul Whelan, who was ‘greatly disappointed’ more was not done to secure his release.
