US’ Griner arrives home, Bout lands in Moscow

WASHINGTON, December 9

Basketball star Brittney Griner landed in the United States on Friday after 10 months in Russian detention following a prisoner swap with arms dealer Viktor Bout who flew home hours earlier to embrace his family on the airport tarmac in Moscow.

“They say she’s in very good spirits, appears to be in good health,” White House spokesman John Kirby said in an interview, citing US officials on the ground in San Antonio, Texas, where she arrived just before dawn.

Securing Thursday’s swap, after months of painstaking negotiations, was a rare instance of US-Russian cooperation after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, although the Kremlin was quick to say it did not show improving relations.

Russia’s state media trumpeted the swap as a win for Moscow, after the release of a man who the US Department of Justice has described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers who had sold weapons across the globe to terrorists and America’s enemies for decades. Bout always denied the charges.

US President Joe Biden, in announcing her release on Thursday, said the swap ended what he described as months of “hell” for Griner, 32, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and star of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Mercury.

“So happy to have Brittney back on US soil. Welcome home BG!,” US Special Presidential Envoy Roger Carstens, the chief US hostage coordinator, said in a post on Twitter.

Women’s National Basketball Association Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, in an interview, credited US negotiators, adding: “Brittney really deserves to be home. She was wrongfully detained and we’re happy that she’s reuniting with her family today.” Griner, who flew into San Antonio before dawn on Friday, had been arrested on February 17 at a Moscow airport after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, were found in her luggage. — Reuters

More prisoner exchanges possible

Moscow: Vladimir Putin says more US-Russian prisoner exchanges are possible. Putin said this on Friday, a day after Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was swapped for WNBA star and two-time Olympian Brittney Griner. Asked whether other prisoners could be swapped, Putin replied that “everything is possible”. AP