Unfairly Condemned, Brittney Griner Is the Hostage of the Diplomatic War Between America and Russia.
Putin is using the Griner affair to demand the release of ultra-dangerous Russian prisoners in exchange.
The outcome was hardly in doubt. Here is the American basketball star sentenced by the court of Khimki, in the suburbs of Moscow, to 9 years of detention in a penitentiary colony. In Russia, acquittals hardly exist and, in any case, Brittney Griner, advised by her Russian lawyers to show goodwill, had pleaded partially guilty to the charges against her.
Yes, she had cannabis oil - contained in vaporizer cartridges - on her person when she arrived at Sheremetyevo airport in February 2022, without declaring it in the customs area. But no, it was not for drug trafficking.
“I never knowingly wanted to violate the laws of the Russian Federation,” repeated throughout the trial of the 31-year-old basketball player, explaining in passing that the cannabis oil had been prescribed by a doctor in Arizona, where it is legal, to alleviate his chronic back pain.
No matter: the judge Anna Sotnikova condemned her on Thursday to the heaviest sentence, the maximum being 10 years in prison for this kind of fact. In Russia, there is no time for leniency, as various scientists, academics, local elected officials, and even members of the security services are being arrested at the moment.
Despite the context of the Russian war in Ukraine that has iced relations between Washington and Moscow, Brittney Griner probably never thought she would find herself involved in a diplomatic tug-of-war that seems to be beyond her. Every year since 2014, she has played the basketball season with the Yekaterinburg club, a stronghold of European women's basketball.
A common case: very many players who, like her, play in the summer in the best league in the world, the WNBA, actually spend most of the year playing abroad. The reason for this is the short American season and the low salaries (the Phoenix Mercury paid Griner, one of the best players in the world, $200,000 a season).
American basketball players are relocating to the four corners of Europe or China, where the remuneration is without comparison. Especially in Russia, where the clubs, often owned by industrialists or local oligarchs, pay their players well.
In the Urals, Griner was paid more than 1 million dollars per year. The ordeal of the double Olympic champion had the merit of re-launching in the United States the debate and the controversy around the dizzying differences in salaries between female and male basketball players in the NBA, a league where the biggest stars earn more than 50 million dollars per year.
America has already made an exchange proposal to Putin's Russia for Brittney Griner
Thanks to its center of 2.06 meters, Yekaterinburg had gleaned three European titles, in 2016, 2019, and 2021, and several titles of Russian champions. It is an understatement to say that Griner, in his role, has therefore done a lot for Russia and the city of 1 million inhabitants. During the last day of the trial on Thursday, the American brandished in her box a photo of her among her Russian teammates.
The naturalized American, Becky Hammon, star of the Russian national team and championship for years, also publicly pleaded with the Kremlin for her release. Not enough to change the outcome of the verdict.
Brittney Griner could be the subject of a prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington, along with the American marine Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia for espionage. The U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, mentioned it for the first time in July 2022 with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. On Friday, August 5, 2022, Lavrov said that Russia was “open to discussion” on this option.
According to Blinken, the United States has made a choice proposal to Russia ... Without confirming at this time speculation that the person who could be exchanged for Griner would be the famous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Nicknamed the “Merchant of Death”, arrested in Thailand in 2008, he is serving a 25-year prison sentence in America. A possibility that has already aroused fears among organizations fighting against arms trafficking, who believe that Bout could be reused by the Kremlin afterward, particularly in Africa where he had set up a vast network.
Finally, according to CNN, Moscow has asked via various sources of American intelligence that a second Russian prisoner be exchanged for Griner, in addition to Viktor Bout: Vadim Krasikov. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Chechen veteran in Berlin in 2019, the man is in custody in Germany ... This could greatly complicate negotiations.
Final Thoughts
We can see here that Brittney Griner finds herself stuck in an odious Russian diplomatic game. If her guilt is not in question on the possession of cannabis oil in her vaporizer cartridges, we are far from having to deal with an international drug trafficker. Controlled by the Kremlin, the Russian justice system has instrumentalized her case to allow Putin to use her case for political purposes.
Putin uses the Griner case for his anti-Western propaganda at first, before negotiating with America the release of prisoners far more dangerous than Griner. A real shame, but that should not surprise you when you see what Vladimir Putin is capable of. The war in Ukraine that he has been leading since February 24, 2022, is proof that nothing seems to stop him in his race towards more and more atrocity.
Some reading
Putin’s War in Ukraine Shakes Up the Global Nuclear Order. Humanity is just one miscalculation, one misunderstanding away from nuclear annihilation.
Xi Jinping Must Face the Grumbling of Chinese Ultranationalists Who Find Him Too Soft. Their message: “With Putin, we would have already hit Taiwan”.
“Das Krisenjahr” – The Trauma of the Hyperinflation of 1923 During the Weimar Republic in Germany. The fight against inflation has since become a doctrinal pillar of Germany.
The Great Resignation — How to Wake Up the Sleeping West. Without fully understanding its meaning, the collapse we are experiencing announces a regeneration