The US urges Moscow to accept a deal to release basketball player Brittany Griner, sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison.
The double Olympic winner was convicted of possessing and smuggling drugs after admitting to having cannabis oil. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US proposal was “serious” but gave no details.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready to discuss the matter. US media reports suggest Washington offers a prisoner swap involving a Russian arms smuggler.
Viktor Bout – known as the “merchant of death” – is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the US.
Washington could transfer him to the Russian authorities in exchange for Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan, the reports say. Whelan, who has the US, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in jail in Russia after being convicted of spying.
Mr Kirby told reporters that the duo were being wrongfully detained and needed to be let go.
On the US proposal, Mr Kirby said: “We urge them to accept it. They should have accepted it weeks ago when we first made it.”
But according to the Reuters news agency, one stumbling block is that Russia wants to add convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov, who is in prison in Germany, to the proposed swap.
When questioned about this possibility, Mr Kirby dismissed it, saying: “I don’t think we go so far as to call it a counter-offer.”
Griner, 31, told the court she had made an “honest mistake” and had not intended to break the law.
Considered one of the best female players in the world, she was detained in February at an airport near Moscow when vape cartridges containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage. She had come to Russia to play club basketball during the US off-season.
Soon afterwards, Russia invaded Ukraine, and her case became subject to high-profile diplomacy between the US and Russia.
Her defence team said they would appeal against the verdict.
Griner’s Phoenix Mercury teammates staged a gesture of solidarity on Thursday when they and their Connecticut Sun opponents observed 42 seconds of silence before their game in honour of her number 42 jersey.
US President Joe Biden called her sentencing “unacceptable”, adding: “I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken added: “Russia, and any country engaging in wrongful detention, represents a threat to the safety of everyone travelling, working and living abroad.”
Mr Blinken raised the issue in a phone call with Mr Lavrov last week, in the first conversation between the two men since the start of the war in Ukraine.
A day after Griner’s sentencing, Mr Lavrov said that Moscow is ready to discuss the topic of prisoner exchanges with Washington. Still, within the framework of an existing diplomatic channel agreed upon by Presidents Putin and Biden, Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.
Mr Lavrov and Mr Blinken are now in Cambodia for the Association of South-East Asian Nations meeting. The US says Mr Blinken will try to speak with Mr Lavrov again while they are there.
