A former adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow got the better of the prisoner swap that sent WNBA star Brittney Griner back to the United States for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
“Putin beat Biden,” wrote Sergei Markov in a long post on his Telegram channel.
Markov called Griner an “excellent athlete” and a “simple girl,” but that Bout was more important to Russia. He added that prisoner exchanges between Russia and the United States should benefit Moscow.
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“But the principle of exchange with Westerners should be like this,” he wrote. “Always in our favor”.
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted from a courtroom after a hearing in Khimki, just outside Moscow, Russia August 4, 2022. She was set free on Thursday in exchange for Viktor Bout, a convicted international arms dealer.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Files)
Griner, 32, had been in Russian custody for nearly 10 months before being released. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on February 17 after Russian authorities said she had cannabis oil vape cartridges inside her luggage.
On Aug. 4, Griner was sentenced to nine years after pleading guilty, alleging she had been prescribed cannabis for her pain and had inadvertently packaged it. Her sentence was upheld in October and she was subsequently transferred to a penal colony.
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Bout is known as the “Merchant of Death” due to his notoriety for operating a fleet of aging Soviet-era cargo planes to conflict hotspots in Africa. Reports of him inspired Nicolas Cage’s film “Lord of War”.
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is escorted by policemen as he arrives for a hearing at the Bangkok Criminal Court in 2010.
(CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
He had been in US custody since 2008 and was convicted in 2011 of conspiring to sell weapons to be used to kill Americans. At the time of his release he was serving a 25-year federal prison sentence.
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“Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and should have been there all along,” President Biden said Thursday. “This is a day we have worked hard for. We have never stopped pushing for her release.”
Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine accused of espionage and arrested in Russia in December 2018, sits in a defendant’s cage as he waits to hear his verdict in Moscow on June 15, 2020.
(Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
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The exchange has drawn much criticism as former Marine Paul Whelan is still being held in Russia despite the State Department alleging he is being held illegally on espionage charges.
Before being convicted and jailed in Russia, Griner called for protests against the national anthem at WNBA games.
Ryan Gaydos of Fox News contributed to this report.
