Bout, Viktor

Subterms

    Latest story

    100 Shares149 Views

    Inside the Prisoner Swap That Freed Brittney Griner

    by

    WASHINGTON — Month after month, as American diplomats pushed for the release of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan from Russian prisons, they received the same, infuriating answer: If you want both prisoners, we want Vadim Krasikov as part of the deal.Mr. Krasikov is an assassin who murdered a Chechen fighter in a park in Berlin in broad daylight in 2019, a brazen killing that the German authorities say was committed at the behest of Russia’s intelligence services. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Germany, Mr. Krasikov was not in U.S. custody to be traded to Russia.It was, the Americans thought, hardly a viable request for a swap that would include Ms. Griner, a W.N.B.A. star, and Mr. Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, who were being detained on what Biden administration officials considered trumped-up charges. American officials felt out their German counterparts to see if they might agree and were hardly surprised when Berlin refused to release what they considered a cold killer. Trying to be creative, the Americans even explored some sort of three-way deal that would give the Germans something in return, but that did not go anywhere, either.Privately, some of the administration’s diplomats concluded that the insistence on freeing Mr. Krasikov was a stalling tactic by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who they believed was determined not to deliver any kind of political victory to President Biden before the midterm elections in the United States last month. Others believed the Russians were serious and saw it as a face-saving way for Moscow’s security services to give up Mr. Whelan, whom they convicted of espionage despite flat denials from Washington that he was a spy.Either way, how Mr. Biden came to agree to a swap that freed Ms. Griner but not Mr. Whelan was a tale of feints and intrigue carried out through secret negotiations and public posturing, all against the backdrop of a brutal war in which American-armed Ukrainians were battling Russian invaders. At the end of the day, according to senior U.S. officials directly involved in the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe delicate diplomacy, it left the president with the unpalatable choice of liberating one American while leaving another behind.Ms. Griner arrived in the United States early Friday, landing in San Antonio, where she was to receive medical evaluations at Brooke Army Medical Center and be reunited with family, a relief for Mr. Biden and his team. Mr. Whelan remains in a dismal Russian prison, his long-term fate unknown, as his frustrated family waits and while the president vows to redouble efforts to bring him home.In Moscow on Friday, Mr. Putin said Russia was continuing to communicate with American officials and that “everything is possible” regarding further prisoner exchanges. American officials have delivered a similar message, pledging to continue talks in the hope of bringing Mr. Whelan home as soon as possible.The Release of Brittney GrinerThe American basketball star had been detained in Russia since February on charges of smuggling hashish oil into the country.Anxiety Turns to Relief: Brittney Griner’s supporters watched with dismay as her situation appeared to worsen over the summer. Now they are celebrating her release.The Russian Playbook: By detaining Ms. Griner, the Kremlin weaponized pain to get the United States to turn over a convicted arms dealer. Can the same tactic work in the war in Ukraine?A Test for Women’s Sports: The release was a victory for W.N.B.A. players and fans, who pushed furiously for it. But the athlete’s plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.The two imprisoned Americans offered distinct cases that were eventually linked and then unlinked. Ms. Griner, detained on minor drug charges a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, was seen as a hostage in the midst of the confrontation with the West over the conflict. Mr. Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, had been in prison since 2018 on espionage charges long before the war in Ukraine.The outlines of a possible agreement were on the table as far back as last spring. Interacting through intelligence agencies, the Russians made clear that they were willing to trade Ms. Griner for Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer arrested in Thailand in 2008 and serving a 25-year sentence in American prison. But they were not willing to include Mr. Whelan in the package deal.Mr. Bout was important to the Russians because of his ties to the security services. While he is not known to be close to Mr. Putin, U.S. officials said, Mr. Bout has connections in the Russian power structures. And Russia had made a martyr out of Mr. Bout over the past 14 years; freeing him would allow Mr. Putin to boast about finally bringing a patriot home.To the Russians, trading Ms. Griner for Mr. Bout was a swap of two criminals, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Whelan, on the other hand, was supposedly an American agent, in the Russian telling, so only another agent or someone of equivalent importance would merit giving him up. The Americans do not currently have a Russian spy in custody to trade. And that is where Mr. Krasikov came in.Mr. Krasikov, who called himself Vadim A. Sokolov, was arrested after two witnesses saw him throwing his bike and a bag into the Spree River after twice shooting the victim, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen separatist commander who fought against Russian forces in the early 2000s and was labeled a terrorist by Russian state media. Police divers later found a Glock 26 pistol in the river in the downtown park.Frustrated by the demand for a swap they could not make, American officials broke with years of tradition by telling reporters that they had made a “substantial” offer to the Russians, making clear that Mr. Biden would trade Mr. Bout for Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan. They hoped the public pressure would move the Russians off their insistence for Mr. Krasikov and into a deal..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.It did not — for many months.But just after Election Day in the United States, Russian contacts delivered a new message, raising the possibility of excluding Mr. Whelan from a deal and instead focusing exclusively on Ms. Griner. If that were the case, the Russians said, Moscow might consider Mr. Bout a fair trade.The disparity of their offenses was vast: Mr. Bout was an illegal arms merchant to some of the world’s most violent forces, including some intent on killing Americans; Ms. Griner was detained for traveling with vape cartridges containing hashish oil. But it was the first time that the Russians had made what the American diplomats considered a real counteroffer, if they were serious about following through.At the White House, the possibility prompted a series of high-level meetings and discussions, some of which included Mr. Biden, about whether to test if the Russians were serious about making a one-for-one deal, much like they had months before in a swap that freed Trevor Reed, another imprisoned American.The situation was fluid and uncertain. Even as they discussed their options, the family of Mr. Whelan said publicly that he had missed two calls with them, raising fears for his safety and reports that he had been moved from his prison to a hospital in Russia.Had the Russians done something to Mr. Whelan? That could have made a trade for Ms. Griner impossible, but also would have seemed unlikely given that it was the Russians who now seemed eager to make a deal. For days, work on the potential deal for Ms. Griner stalled as the Americans worked to figure out what had happened. Officials eventually determined that Mr. Whelan had been taken back to prison, and he called his family.At a meeting in the Oval Office early last week, Mr. Biden was ready to sign off. The Justice Department had weighed in against the deal, communicating their objections through Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. But the department makes a policy of opposing prisoner trades across the board, arguing that it undercuts the American justice system. The State Department, on the other hand, recommended the deal, as did other officials who concluded that the deal from the Russians was never going to change and so it was time to take it. The president agreed.The careful negotiations, however, almost unraveled a few days later, as Mr. Biden hosted President Emmanuel Macron of France for a state dinner at the White House. A journalist for CBS News contacted the White House with reporting that the administration was preparing to swap Ms. Griner for Mr. Bout.Premature disclosure, officials feared, was likely to scuttle the deal. They asked the network to hold off. According to CBS, it “agreed to a White House request to hold the reporting because officials expressed grave concern about the fragility of the then-emerging deal.”With that resolved, officials moved forward. Armed with the president’s go-ahead, they pressed their Russian counterparts: Are you serious about this? The answer came back more quickly than the American diplomats expected, and it was more definitive. Yes, they said. The day after the state dinner, Mr. Biden signed an executive grant of clemency for Mr. Bout, but held it back while aides set the transfer in motion.Wary of undercutting the deal, the American diplomats carefully made one last appeal for Mr. Whelan, asking the Russians if there was anyone other than Mr. Krasikov whom they might want in exchange for both Mr. Whelan and Ms. Griner. They got a firm no, but the Russians did not use the effort as an excuse to back out of the developing arrangement for Ms. Griner.Within days, plans were set for two planes to take off — one from Moscow, where Ms. Griner had been transferred, and another from the United States, with Mr. Bout.One question to resolve: Where to make the swap? In the Cold War days and even as recently as a Russian-American spy swap in 2010 under President Barack Obama, prisoners were exchanged in the middle of Europe: the Glienicke Bridge in Potsdam, Germany, as made famous in the Tom Hanks movie “Bridge of Spies,” or in Vienna, as with the 2010 trade.But because of American and European sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February, Moscow was not willing to send a plane anywhere in Europe for fear that it could be seized. Even long-neutral Switzerland had joined sanctions against Russia while Helsinki, Finland — a prime Russian-American meeting site during the Cold War — was no longer acceptable because the country is joining NATO.The compromise became the United Arab Emirates, a small Gulf state that is friendly with both Washington and Moscow. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the Emirates, had raised Ms. Griner’s case with Mr. Putin during a meeting in October, and so the Emiratis were happy to facilitate the transfer. The arrangements were made: Both sides would send planes to Abu Dhabi, the capital.Cherelle Griner, Ms. Griner’s wife, was invited to the White House on Thursday morning ostensibly to meet with Mr. Sullivan for an update. When she arrived, however, Mr. Sullivan surprised her by taking her to the Oval Office, where Mr. Biden broke the news that Ms. Griner was coming home. At that point, Ms. Griner was on the ground in Abu Dhabi, while Mr. Bout’s plane was 30 minutes out.Once he landed, his clemency document was finalized and the swap proceeded, captured in grainy video distributed by Russian state media. It showed Ms. Griner and Mr. Bout being walked to the middle of a dusty tarmac, escorted by officials of their countries. After a brief stop, Ms. Griner was led away in one direction, while Mr. Bout left with Russian officials in another.Mr. Biden and Cherelle Griner celebrated before cameras in the Oval Office. But once the journalists were ushered out, the president had another, grimmer task: He had to call Mr. Whelan’s sister to explain why he was not coming home, at least not yet.Neil MacFarquhar More

    More stories

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      An Open Letter to Welcome Home Brittney Griner

      by

      When Griner was imprisoned in Russia, letters were her main form of communication with home. Our columnist offers one last letter to mark her return to the United States.Welcome home, Brittney. At long last, welcome home.Like so many others, I wondered if this day would ever come.Now you are home and safe after nearly 10 months of brutal uncertainty and fear.Home and safe after isolating imprisonment in a Russia that has cast aside international norms.Home and safe after getting trapped in a web of geopolitics that grew thicker each day as the war in Ukraine dragged on. What you endured over the last 10 months is nearly unfathomable. As a Black, openly gay woman, you were in particular danger as a prisoner in a country with dangerous, retrograde views on race and sexuality.Home — and safe. What a turn of events.And yet, less than a day after your plane touched down at a Texas military base, controversy and conversation swirl.Some voices say the Biden administration should never have swapped a W.N.B.A. star in a one-for-one trade for Viktor Bout, a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel described by the Justice Department as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.Others feel that you deserved no help, that you alone should have answered to Russian authorities for the mistake of having vape cartridges containing a trace of cannabis oil in your luggage, even though you’ve said you use the substance for pain management.The Release of Brittney GrinerThe American basketball star had been detained in Russia since February on charges of smuggling hashish oil into the country.Anxiety Turns to Relief: Brittney Griner’s supporters watched with dismay as her situation appeared to worsen over the summer. Now they are celebrating her release.The Russian Playbook: By detaining Ms. Griner, the Kremlin weaponized pain to get the United States to turn over a convicted arms dealer. Can the same tactic work in the war in Ukraine?A Test for Women’s Sports: The release was a victory for W.N.B.A. players and fans, who pushed furiously for it. But the athlete’s plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.Then there are those hailing the White House for committing an act of mercy in pressing for your return.I’ll leave the political discussion to someone else. I want to focus on another part of the conversation. Already people are asking: What’s next?When will you return to the W.N.B.A., your Phoenix Mercury teammates, and the U.S. national team you helped lead to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics?Roughly a decade ago, you became one of the first Black and openly lesbian headliners in women’s basketball. In your trademark soft-spoken manner, you pushed for racial and social change in America. So will you use this moment to become an even more powerful advocate?Will you do more, Brittney?“What’s next” is an understandable query, but I hope folks pump the brakes.Brittney, you shouldn’t feel you owe anything more than the gratitude you’ve already expressed to those who stood by your side and worked for your release.You have done more than enough. Don’t feel you have to do anything but heal.During this ordeal, we all saw the anguish and tears of your wife, Cherelle Griner. She, no surprise, has said the two of you will speak up for Americans the State Department has said were wrongly detained in other countries, including Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia since 2018.Before all this happened, you might not have been well-known outside of sports circles. Now, more and more people have heard about how you were part of a wave of W.N.B.A. players who spoke up for racial injustice. More know that you have fought to help L.G.B.T.Q. people and those without homes in Phoenix.So it’s exciting to think about your next move and how you can use your platform for good.When I spoke to Victor Kozar, the Mercury’s president, this week, he mentioned the letters you exchanged over the last several months. “At all times, she was asking about other people,” said Kozar, your boss and friend. “Her concern was about other people. First and foremost, she asked how her teammates were doing, asking us to ensure we were taking care of her wife.”“That’s B.G.,” he added. “Even under this kind of duress, it was not about her. It was about others.”Sports stars offer us inspiration in many ways. Most commonly, it’s on fields and courts, through performances that allow us to see how we can be stretched to the limit.Brittney, you’ve inspired us in ways that matter more than slam dunks, blocked shots or championships.When you were freed, I thought about the timing. This week, Congress voted to cement federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages. (It’s a huge deal for me, too, since I have a nonbinary family member and my Black father and white mother married in 1954, when such unions were finally becoming legal in a smattering of states.)It’s sad that it took until 2022 to ensure such rights, but think about how far we’ve come. Ten or twenty years ago, if you’d been imprisoned in Russia, we probably would not have discussed race, sexual orientation and how those facts of your life put you in danger, this openly and often.“Brittney’s situation is a sign of progress, a sign that our nation has moved tremendously.” That’s how Victoria Kirby York, the National Black Justice Coalition public policy director, put it when she and I chatted Thursday. She noted the serious work that remains to be done, but added: “We have seen Americans move toward racial justice, and we are only going to see more of that happen, and a big part of it is people like Brittney Griner inviting us to see who they really are.”Rest with that, Brittney. May it be part of the support that helps you heal.My guess is that you’ll head back to basketball in due time — particularly when I think about how you grew up, with the game providing solace and healing for a young, Black, gay woman edging toward 7 feet tall in the American South of the 1990s and early 2000s.If history is any guide, you are likely to continue with advocacy and speaking out.Now your name and your story have a resonance few in the sports world can top. Who can better speak to our American shortcomings than someone scorned by many at home but also saved and spared by the intense efforts of the U.S. government?Then again, maybe you don’t do any of this. Brittney, don’t look back or feel bad if you want to ride into the sunset now, healing away from the public eye and maybe staying away for good.If that’s the decision, wonderful. Either way, we’ve got your back. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      In the Deal to Free Griner, Putin Used a Familiar Lever: Pain

      by

      President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to prosecute his war in Ukraine in the same way he secured the freedom on Thursday of a major Russian arms dealer: inflict so much pain on Western governments that, eventually, they make a deal.The Kremlin pushed for more than a decade to get Viktor Bout, convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans, released from prison in the United States. But it was only this year, with the arrest at a Moscow airport of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, that Mr. Putin found the leverage to get his way.On Thursday, pro-Kremlin voices celebrated Mr. Bout’s release, in a prisoner exchange for Ms. Griner, as a victory, a sign that no matter the desire to punish Russia over the war in Ukraine, the United States will still come to the table when key American interests are at play. Russia negotiated from “a position of strength, comrades,” Maria Butina — a pro-Putin member of Parliament who herself served time in an American prison — posted on the Telegram messaging app.Mr. Putin’s emerging strategy in Ukraine, in the wake of his military’s repeated failures, now increasingly echoes the strategy that finally brought Mr. Bout back to Moscow. He is bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure, effectively taking its people hostage as he seeks to break the country’s spirit. The tactic is threatening the European Union with a new wave of refugees just as Mr. Putin uses a familiar economic lever: choking off gas exports. And Mr. Putin is betting that the West, even after showing far more unity in support of Ukraine than Mr. Putin appears to have expected, will eventually tire of the fight and its economic ill effects.The American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in March, was released from a penal colony on Thursday. Here, she is being escorted to a Moscow courtroom last August.Pool photo by Kirill KudryavtsevThere’s no guarantee that strategy will work. Though President Biden yielded on Mr. Bout, he has shown no inclination to relent on United States support for Ukraine. America’s European allies, while facing some domestic political and economic pressure to press for a compromise with Russia, have remained on board.In the face of this Western solidarity, Mr. Putin repeatedly signaled this week that he is willing to keep fighting, despite embarrassing territorial retreats, Russian casualties that the United States puts at more than 100,000 and the West’s ever-expanding sanctions. On Wednesday, he warned that the war “might be a long process.” And at a Kremlin medal ceremony for soldiers on Thursday, Mr. Putin insisted — falsely — that it was Ukraine’s government that was carrying out “genocide,” suggesting that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure would continue.“If we make the smallest move to respond, there’s noise, din and clamor across the whole universe,” he said, champagne flute in hand, in remarks broadcast on state television. “This will not prevent us from fulfilling our combat missions.”Mr. Putin did not comment on the prisoner exchange himself on Thursday. But in the context of the Ukraine war, there was a clear undertone to the crowing in Moscow: To supporters, Mr. Putin remains a deal maker, and he stands ready to negotiate over Ukraine as long as the West does not block his goal of pulling the country into his orbit and seizing some of its territory.“He’s signaling that he’s ready to bargain,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst who studies Mr. Putin, said. “But he’s letting the West know that ‘Ukraine is ours.’”Heavily damaged buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine, last week.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked when the war could end, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, hinted on Thursday that Russia is still waiting for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to accept some kind of deal: “Zelensky knows when this could all end. It could end tomorrow, if there’s a will.”But when one of Mr. Putin’s top spies, Sergei Naryshkin, met with the head of the C.I.A., William Burns, in Turkey last month, Mr. Burns did not discuss a settlement to the Ukraine war, American officials said. Instead, Mr. Burns warned of dire consequences for Moscow were it to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and discussed the fate of Americans imprisoned in Russia, including Ms. Griner.“The Russian negotiating style is, they punch you in the face and then they ask if you want to negotiate,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who now works as research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The Americans respond to that by saying, ‘You know, you just punched us in the face, you clearly don’t want to negotiate.’”Nevertheless, negotiations on some issues have continued even as Russia’s onslaught of missile attacks has escalated, talks blessed by Mr. Putin despite occasional criticism from the most hawkish supporters of his war.Russia’s pro-war bloggers fumed in September when Mr. Putin agreed to an earlier high-profile exchange: commanders of the Azov Battalion, a nationalist fighting force within the Ukrainian military that gained celebrity status for its defense of a besieged steel plant, for a friend of Mr. Putin, the Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Some critics have slammed Mr. Putin’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea as representing an undue concession.President Vladimir V. Putin, third from left, inspecting the Kerch Strait Bridge this week. The bridge, which connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, was badly damaged in a Ukrainian attack in October.Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via ReutersAnd then there were the talks surrounding Mr. Bout and Ms. Griner. On the surface, the exchange appeared to be a mismatch, given the wide disparity in the severity of their offenses: one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers and an American basketball star detained for traveling with vape cartridges containing hashish oil.But Mr. Biden showed he was prepared to invest significant political capital in securing Ms. Griner’s freedom, while the Kremlin has long sought Mr. Bout’s release.“We know that attempts to help Bout have been made for many years,” said Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government. “He has also become a symbolic figure” for the Kremlin, he added.Mr. Bout became notorious among American intelligence officials, earning the nickname “Merchant of Death” as he evaded capture for years. He was finally arrested in an undercover operation in Bangkok in 2008, with American prosecutors saying he had agreed to sell antiaircraft weapons to informants posing as arms buyers for the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC.Some analysts believe that Mr. Bout has connections to Russia’s intelligence services. Such links have not been publicly confirmed, but they could explain why Mr. Putin — a former K.G.B. officer — has put such stock in working for Mr. Bout’s release.“If he were just some arms dealer and cargo magnate, then it is hard to see why it would have been quite such a priority for the Russian state,” Mark Galeotti, a lecturer on Russia and transnational crime at University College London, said last summer.President Biden at a news conference on Thursday with Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, left, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Washington.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat means that the U.S. decision to free Mr. Bout — likely the most prominent Russian in American custody — represented a significant compromise. It was magnified by the fact that the United States accepted the exchange even though Russia declined to also release Paul Whelan, a former Marine the Biden administration also considers a political hostage.Some analysts believe that the decision to free Mr. Bout carries risks because it could encourage Mr. Putin to take new hostages — and shows that his strategy of causing pain, and then winning concessions, is continuing to bear fruit.Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said that he was worried about the precedent set by Washington’s agreeing to trade an arms dealer for a basketball player who committed a minor offense.“Back in the days of the Cold War, it was always about professionals against professionals, one spy against another,” he said. While the United States must contend with public demand at home to return a hostage, the Russians can “ignore it completely,” he said.Now, Moscow “can just grab someone with a high public profile in the U.S. — an athlete, a sportsman,” he said. Public outcry in the U.S. “would make that position much more advantageous in terms of these kind of talks.” More

    • 100 Shares199 Views

      in Basket

      Brittney Griner’s Sentence Renews Pressure on President Biden

      by

      The basketball star’s supporters are pressing for action. But critics of any possible deal are already fuming.WASHINGTON — Immediately after a Moscow judge handed down Brittney Griner’s nine-year prison sentence on Thursday, calls grew louder for President Biden to find a way to bring her home.“We call on President Biden and the United States government to redouble their efforts to do whatever is necessary and possible,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement.U.S. officials and analysts had been resigned to a guilty verdict for Ms. Griner, a basketball star who plays for a Russian team during the W.N.B.A. off-season. But the cold reality of her sentence on a drug charge was a shock and renewed calls for Mr. Biden to secure her release — even as critics fumed that offering to swap prisoners with Moscow rewards Russian hostage-taking.The result is a painful quandary for the Biden administration as it tries to maintain a hard line against President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over his war in Ukraine.“There’s nothing good here,” said Andrea Schneider, an expert on international conflict resolution at Cardozo School of Law. “No matter what Biden does, he’s going to be criticized — either that we’re giving too much or we’re not working hard enough.”Kremlin officials had said that any potential deal could not proceed before her trial was complete, creating a glimmer of hope that the verdict might open the door for an exchange. But analysts called that unlikely anytime soon.“I don’t think this is going to get resolved quickly,” said Jared Genser, a human rights lawyer who represents Americans held by foreign governments. “I think the fact that Putin has not said yes right away means that he’s looked at the U.S. offer and said, ‘Well, that’s their first offer. I can get more than that.’”That U.S. offer, first presented to Russia in June, sought the release of Ms. Griner and Paul N. Whelan, a former Marine arrested in Moscow and convicted of espionage in 2020.The Biden administration proposed to trade the two Americans for the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is midway through a 25-year federal prison sentence for offering to sell arms to a Colombian rebel group that the United States then considered a terrorist organization.The proposal has already reshaped U.S. diplomacy toward Russia, which had been frozen at senior levels since Mr. Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. A phone call about the matter on July 29 between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, was their first conversation since the war began. But it appeared to leave the Kremlin unmoved. The White House says Russia has made an unspecified “bad faith” counteroffer that the United States is not taking seriously.What to Know About the Brittney Griner CaseCard 1 of 4What happened? More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      Why the U.S. Offered to Swap Griner for Bout, a Russian Arms Dealer

      by

      The negotiations raise questions about what, if any, standards should apply when the United States agrees to trade prisoners.WASHINGTON — One is perhaps the world’s most notorious arms dealer, a man known as the “Merchant of Death” who sold weapons to terrorists, rebels and militants around the world before finally being hunted down and locked up for conspiring to kill Americans.The other is a basketball player who got caught with a little hashish oil.By no measure are they comparable, yet the Biden administration has proposed trading the merchant of death for the imprisoned basketball player as well as a former marine held in Russia on what are considered trumped-up espionage charges. In the harsh and cynical world of international diplomacy, prisoner exchanges are rarely pretty, but unpalatable choices are often the only choices on the table.Whether the swap would go through remained unclear. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made the offer public in part to reassure the families of Brittney Griner, the basketball player, and Paul N. Whelan, the former marine, that the administration is doing all it can to free them.Russian officials, who have long sought the release of the arms trafficker Viktor Bout, confirmed the discussion on Thursday but said Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov was too busy to talk with Mr. Blinken now.The disclosure of the negotiations raised obvious questions about what, if any, standards should apply when the United States agrees to trade prisoners, a conundrum that has challenged the nation’s leaders since its founding.The debate becomes all the more complex when it involves exchanging not soldiers on a battlefield or spies in a Cold War but dangerous criminals for civilians whose real crime is being caught up in wrong-place, wrong-time international intrigue.“The fact that Bout is a big fish isn’t really part of the calculus,” said Jeremy Bash, who was chief of staff at the C.I.A. when the United States made a high-profile spy swap with Russia in 2010. “We value our own citizens a thousand times more than we value the foreign criminal. Israel takes the same approach. They’d trade a thousand Hamas fighters for one I.D.F. soldier. We in the U.S. take the same attitude. We will do almost anything to save an American life.”Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer, arriving at court in Bangkok in 2010. He was extradited and convicted of conspiring to kill Americans.Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut other veterans of past administrations expressed concern that such exchanges, especially one that seems on its face to be as imbalanced as swapping a death-dealing arms merchant for an athlete who may have vaped, would only encourage the imprisonment of more Americans who could be used as hostages.“I take a pretty hard line on it,” said John R. Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser. “It’s one thing to exchange prisoners of war. It’s one thing to exchange spies when you know that’s going on.” But “negotiations and exchanges with terrorists or with authoritarian governments” become dangerous “because then you’re just putting a price on the next American hostage.”What to Know About Brittney Griner’s Detention in RussiaCard 1 of 5What happened? More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      Glimpses of Brittney Griner Show a Complicated Path to Release

      by

      The W.N.B.A. star’s appearances this week during her trial on drug charges in Russia highlighted the unclear path to her release and heightened her supporters’ concerns for her safety.One hundred forty-one days.That is how long Brittney Griner has been behind bars in Russia. That is how long she has been stuck in the middle of a high-stakes staredown between the United States and Russia at exactly the wrong time, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia continues his horrendous invasion of Ukraine and echoes the return of the Cold War.One hundred forty-one days. That is how long Griner has been in limbo.What terrible uncertainty and fear she must feel, facing a decade in a Russian prison if she is convicted. Griner captured that emotion in her recent letter to President Biden. “I’m terrified I might be here forever,” she wrote. She added, “Please don’t forget about me.”The seven-time All-Star center for the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury pleaded guilty on Thursday, admitting wrong doing. In so many words, Griner and her lawyer said her troubles began with a mistake: She was readying quickly for her flight to Russia in February and inadvertently packed the smoking cartridges with the small amounts of hashish oil — less than a single gram, according to prosecutors. She said she had no intention of breaking Russian law.Experts say a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion in a Russian legal system entirely stacked against defendants. Griner may have chosen not to fight a battle she could not win, helping speed her case to a conclusion.We don’t know right now. The Mercury center’s teammates, supporters and wife, Cherelle Griner, have not been able to speak with her directly. With the war in Ukraine, all we in America have seen or heard from Griner has been from appearances at a Moscow-area courtroom that she has attended in handcuffs.Uncertainty and complication hover over this awful affair. Russian media outlets have claimed that talks of a possible prisoner exchange are already underway, though U.S. officials have not confirmed this. One floated swap would include Russian national Viktor Bout, who has been imprisoned in the United States since 2012 on a 25-year sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people who said they planned to kill Americans. During his sentencing, prosecutors called Bout “among the world’s most successful and sophisticated arms traffickers.” He is known as the Merchant of Death.That lopsided prospective deal shows the difficulty of negotiating Griner’s release. Would it be a balanced exchange to swap a basketball star who carried hashish oil into Russia for a man found guilty of participating in an international plot against Americans?Paul Whelan, another American being held in Russia, has served two years of a 16-year sentence on espionage charges that he has denied. Is it fair to push for Griner’s release before Whelan’s? Should the United States negotiate for him to be included in a deal, even if doing so delays both their releases?Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine accused of spying and arrested in Russia, inside a defendants’ cage during a court hearing in Moscow in 2019.Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesComplicating matters further are issues of race, gender and sexuality.Griner is tattooed, dreadlocked, Black and three inches shy of seven feet tall. She does not conform to broadly accepted gender stereotypes. She is married to a woman and is an outspoken L.G.B.T.Q. activist. Putin has a well-documented disdain for L.G.B.T.Q. people, which only heightens her supporters’ fears for her well-being.Her appearance, sexuality and outspokenness mean that the contempt for Griner is just as thick in some quarters of the United States. That makes it fair to wonder if the outrage from American citizens would be louder and more pervasive if Griner were a male star athlete who fit neatly into a traditionally accepted role.“If it was LeBron, he’d be home, right?” said Vanessa Nygaard, Griner’s coach with the Mercury. “It’s a statement about the value of women. It’s a statement about the value of a Black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person.”Nygaard may be right. Male athletes are the beneficiaries of a sports ecosystem in which their leagues garner more TV time, their endorsements generate more money and their accomplishments are more loudly lauded. If this were James in custody — or Stephen Curry or Tom Brady — it stands to reason that their fame would push a more fervent mainstream call for release than has been the case for Griner.On the other hand, imagine what Russia would be asking in return for LeBron James: The ransom would probably far exceed a single arms dealer languishing in an American prison, especially given the tension between Biden and Putin.If this were James in custody, well, a whole lot more than a few hundred people would have shown up to rally for his release. On Wednesday, an estimated 300 people gathered at the Mercury’s arena, Phoenix’s Footprint Center, to show their support for Griner. The building seats 17,000.Supporters held up signs reading “Bring Brittney Home” during a rally to support Griner.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesI visited the arena in April for a Mercury preseason game and was surprised by the muted acknowledgment of Griner in a city where she has given so much. Known as B.G., she helped lead the Mercury to a W.N.B.A. title in 2014 but is as admired there for helping the homeless and championing L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Local sports-radio announcers hardly mentioned her, instead going on and on about the Phoenix Suns’ competing in the N.B.A. playoffs.At the time, Griner’s Mercury teammates were following the lead of her advisers, who had decided to stay low-key and not raise a ruckus that might draw Putin’s ire. It was clear the players wanted to be more forthright. As they spoke of how much they loved their teammate and followed the advised path, the fierceness and pain in their eyes showed me that they wanted to say more.The approach flipped a few weeks later when the U.S. State Department declared that Griner had been “wrongfully detained.” The league and its players began to roar — the same as they often do on pressing social issues. Teams paid tribute to Griner by pasting her initials on home courts leaguewide. Over social media, in news conferences and interviews, players demanded that Biden and the White House do whatever was needed to bring her home.“Free B.G.,” said DeWanna Bonner, of the W.N.B.A.’s Connecticut Sun, speaking to the press. “We are B.G. We love B.G. Free her.”The N.B.A. joined the chorus. Players wore “We are B.G.” T-shirts to practices held during the N.B.A. finals. James, Curry and many other stars spoke out, demanding her release. Athletes from other sports joined in. After Griner’s guilty plea on Thursday, Megan Rapinoe, the outspoken star of the U.S. women’s soccer team, wore a white jacket with Griner’s initials stitched into her lapel as she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.What a roller coaster of strategy and emotion. Thursday’s hearing brought another searing twist, seeing Griner there in court, begging for mercy.“This situation with B.G., it’s hard for everybody on our team,” Nygaard said before Thursday night’s home game against the Liberty.The court hearing and admission of guilt. The images of Griner, hands bound, eyes wide, surrounded by Russian police.“When your friend is in danger,” Nygaard added, and that friend is saying “that they’re scared, those things are hard to get away from.”One hundred forty-one days, and counting.Brittney Griner is far from home, and we do not know when she will be set free. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Basket

      Russia Hints at Linking Griner’s Case to Fate of ‘Merchant of Death’

      by

      Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer, is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States.WASHINGTON — She is an American professional basketball star, accused of carrying hashish oil in her luggage.He is a notorious Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people who said they planned to kill Americans.And the Kremlin appears interested in linking their fates, in a potential deal with the Biden administration that would free both.The vast disparity between the cases of Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout highlights the extreme difficulty President Biden would face if he sought a prisoner exchange to free Ms. Griner, the detained W.N.B.A. player, from detention in Moscow. The Biden administration, reluctant to create an incentive for the arrest or abduction of Americans abroad, would be hard-pressed to justify the release of a villainous figure like Mr. Bout.At the same time, Mr. Biden is under pressure to free Ms. Griner, who was arrested at a Moscow-area airport in February and whom the State Department classified in May as “wrongfully detained.” That reflects concern that the Kremlin considers her leverage in the tense confrontation between the United States and Russia over Ukraine. Last week, dozens of groups representing people of color, women and L.G.B.T.Q. Americans sent a letter urging Mr. Biden to “make a deal to get Brittney back home to America immediately and safely.”Ms. Griner’s trial started on Friday was adjourned until next Thursday.Mr. Bout, 55, a former Soviet military officer who made a fortune in global arms trafficking before he was caught in a federal sting operation, could be the price for any deal. Russian officials have pressed Mr. Bout’s case for years, and in recent weeks Russian media outlets have directly linked his case to Ms. Griner’s. Some, including the state-owned Tass news service, have even claimed that talks with Washington for a possible exchange are already underway, something that U.S. officials will not confirm.Mr. Bout’s New York-based lawyer, Steve Zissou, said in an interview that Russian officials are pressing to free Mr. Bout, who was convicted in 2011 of offering to sell weapons, including antiaircraft missiles, to federal agents posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Mr. Zissou said that he met with Anatoly I. Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, in June in Washington and that Mr. Antonov told him the release of Mr. Bout was a very high priority for the Russian government.“It has been communicated to the American side very clearly that they’re going to have to get real on Viktor Bout if they expect any further prisoner exchanges,” Mr. Zissou said. “My sense of this is that no American is going home unless Viktor Bout is sent home with them.”U.S. officials have declined to substantiate that notion and won’t discuss any potential deal to free Ms. Griner. The State Department as a matter of practice dismisses questions about prisoner exchanges around the world, warning that they set a dangerous precedent.“Using wrongful detention as a bargaining chip represents a threat to the safety of everyone traveling, working and living abroad,” the department’s spokesman, Ned Price, recently said.Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Russia’s Brutal Strategy: An analysis of more than 1,000 photos found that Russia has used hundreds of weapons in Ukraine that are widely banned by international treaties.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.Mr. Biden did agree to a prisoner exchange in April, in which Russia released Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine from Texas who had been held since 2019 on charges of assaulting two police officers. The United States in return freed Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling. But White House officials stressed that Mr. Reed’s failing health made his case exceptional.Many people have expressed support for Ms. Griner, a star athlete and basketball icon. Less obvious is the Russian government’s solidarity with an organized crime titan linked to terrorists and war criminals. In December, a government building in Moscow exhibited two dozen of Mr. Bout’s pencil sketches and other artwork produced from his cell in a federal penitentiary building near Marion, Ill.Brittney Griner has been detained in Russia for more than four months. She was escorted to a court hearing outside Moscow earlier this week.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressBy the time of his arrest in 2008, Mr. Bout (pronounced “boot”) was so known that an arms-trafficking character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film “Lord of War” was based on his life.Born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, he attended a Russian military college and served as a Soviet air force officer.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Bout began making money ferrying cargo between continents. U.S. officials say he soon became one of the world’s top arms dealers, transporting weapons from the former Soviet military in Ilyushin transport planes, with a particularly lucrative business in war-torn African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone. Mr. Bout denies that he knowingly trafficked arms.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the United States and European nations were sure that Mr. Bout’s weapons shipments were not only fueling death and misery but also violating United Nations arms embargoes. They were particularly alarmed by intelligence suggesting he may have done business with the Afghan Taliban and even Al Qaeda, charges he denies.Eventually, the United States lured Mr. Bout into a trap. In 2008, a pair of Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as members of Colombia’s leftist FARC rebel group arranged a meeting in Bangkok with Mr. Bout to buy weapons including 30,000 AK-47 rifles, plastic explosives and surface-to-air missiles for use against Colombia’s government and the American military personnel supporting its campaign against the FARC.“Viktor Bout was ready to sell a weapons arsenal that would be the envy of some small countries,” Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said after his conviction. “He aimed to sell those weapons to terrorists for the purpose of killing Americans.”The FARC’s official status at the time as a foreign terrorist organization meant that Mr. Bout drew a mandatory federal minimum sentence of 25 years.One former U.S. official familiar with Mr. Bout’s situation said the Russian government’s interest in his freedom appeared to be personal and that he has ties to powerful people close to President Vladimir V. Putin.Another former American official pointed to a somewhat more principled reason: Mr. Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited from there to New York. Russian officials have complained about what they call the growing “practice used by the U.S. of actually hunting down our citizens abroad and arresting them in other nations,” as Grigory Lukyantsev, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, said in August, according to the Russian news outlet RT.The first former U.S. official said it was highly unlikely that, given the magnitude of his crimes, Mr. Bout would be freed in any deal for Ms. Griner — even if, as some have speculated, the trade were to include Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine imprisoned in Moscow since December 2018 on espionage charges. The former official said Russia had sought Mr. Bout’s release in even higher-profile cases in the past and had been firmly rejected.Both former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss their knowledge of Mr. Bout’s case publicly.Danielle Gilbert, an assistant professor of military and strategic studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy who specializes in hostage diplomacy, agreed that releasing Mr. Bout would be a difficult political proposition. But she did not rule out the idea. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re at least considering the possibility,” she said, noting that she does not speak for the U.S. government.Mr. Bout has at least one advocate for his release in the United States: Shira A. Scheindlin, the judge who presided over his case. In an interview, Ms. Scheindlin said that swapping Mr. Bout for Ms. Griner would be inappropriate, given the scale of his offense in relation to her alleged violation.But she said a deal that also included Mr. Whelan might even the scales. Mr. Bout has already served 11 years in prison, she noted, saying that “he was not a terrorist, in my opinion. He was a businessman.” Although she was required to impose his mandatory 25-year sentence, she added: “I thought it was too high at the time.”“So, having served as long as he has, I think the United States’ interest in punishing him has been satisfied,” she said, “and it would not be a bad equation to send him back if we get back these people who are important to us.”Even if the United States were open to such a deal, Mr. Zissou said it would not be imminent. He said he believed that Russia — which insists Ms. Griner faces legitimate charges and is not a political pawn — was determined to complete her trial before negotiating her release. “And that is likely to take a few months,” he said. More