Russia has freed Brittney Griner in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange that brings the WNBA star back to the United States after almost 10 months’ detention.
The swap, made at a time of heightened tensions over the invasion of Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden but carried a heavy price and left behind Paul Whelan, an American jailed for nearly four years in Russia.
Biden tweeted about Griner’s release Thursday morning, writing that she is on her way back to the United States.
Biden spoke with Griner on the phone Thursday while her wife, Cherelle, was in the Oval Office. In an address from the White House, Biden said these “past few months have been hell for Brittney” but that she was in good spirits.
“This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time,” Biden said. “We never stopped pushing for her release. It took painstaking and intense negotiations, and I want to thank all the hardworking public servants across my administration who worked tirelessly to secure her release.”
Cherelle Griner also spoke at the White House and thanked a number of people who helped secure her wife’s release.
“Today my family is whole,” Cherelle Griner said.
The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose monthslong imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.
Biden’s authorization to release notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, once nicknamed the Merchant of Death, underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and subsequent transfer to a penal colony.