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

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    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

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      Brittney Griner’s Detention in Russia Is Cloaked in Silence

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      Those close to Griner have said little publicly since the W.N.B.A. star was detained in Russia on Feb. 17 on drug charges. Their approach has parallels with other efforts to release Americans held overseas.The detention of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner in Russia on drug charges has left her supporters searching for a road map to a resolution in what could be an especially dangerous situation during the war in Ukraine.An exact parallel is hard to come by, but a situation nearly five years ago, in which three U.C.L.A. basketball players were accused of crimes while in China, blended sports, international diplomacy and a desire for secrecy in a way that echoes Griner’s situation as efforts to bring her home continue quietly.“It is an extremely sensitive situation,” said Representative Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, who said he was working with the State Department to have Griner released. He added, “What we’re trying to do now, of course, is be helpful and not do anything that’ll place Brittney in any kind of danger or make her situation worse.”Griner’s attorney in Russia contacted the U.S. Embassy shortly after she was detained on Feb. 17, Allred said, after Russian Federal Customs Service officials said they had found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. Allred said the Russian authorities have denied the State Department’s request that consular officials meet with Griner.“It’s already a violation of international norms and the way these things are handled when they happen to Americans abroad,” Allred said.Griner, 31, a center for the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury, is said to be facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the drug charges. Many W.N.B.A. players supplement their salaries by playing internationally during the off-season. Griner has played for the Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg since 2014. Those close to her, and officials from the W.N.B.A. and its players’ union, have said little about Griner’s situation beyond that they support her and hope to have her return home safely.The length of her detention so far is not unusual given the charges, said Tom Firestone, an attorney at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who was the resident legal adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow while working for the Justice Department. Russia’s customs service said in a statement on Saturday that it had opened a criminal case into the large-scale transportation of drugs.“Russia has not had liberalization in its cannabis laws the same way we have in the United States,” Firestone said.Russian prosecutors have two months to conduct a preliminary investigation and build a case, but can receive extensions beyond that, Firestone said. Getting out on bail is difficult for people charged with narcotics offenses, and will be especially so for Griner since she is not a Russian citizen, Firestone said.“They should get consular access certainly,” Firestone said. “When an American is arrested overseas the first source of assistance from the U.S. government is the consulate at the U.S. Embassy.”What role, if any, UMMC Ekaterinburg is playing in Griner’s case is unknown, but local ties can be crucial in situations like these, as they were for the three U.C.L.A. basketball players, LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, who were detained in China for shoplifting in November 2017 before a preseason game.From left, Cody Riley, LiAngelo Ball and Jalen Hill were accused of shoplifting while on a trip to China in 2017 with the U.C.L.A. men’s basketball team.Lucy Nicholson/Reuters“We were in Hangzhou, the headquarters of Alibaba, who was our host for the tournament, and they had a deep and nuanced appreciation for the local laws, customs,” said Larry Scott, who was then the commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference. He added, “And it was important to take guidance from them in addition to working with U.S. government officials and others.”Ball, Hill and Riley were in custody for less than a day before being released on bail. They returned to the United States about a week later and apologized publicly for the theft.Ball, who is the brother of the N.B.A. players Lonzo and LaMelo Ball, was the most well-known of the three U.C.L.A. players. “I’d like to start off by saying sorry for stealing from the stores in China,” LiAngelo Ball said at a news conference after returning to the United States. “I’m a young man, but it’s not an excuse for making a really stupid decision.”Scott also said the remorse shown by the players was instrumental in their being allowed to return swiftly. “They were apologetic for it and expressed that,” he said. “There’s an element of saving face involved for local authorities to understand foreigners coming in respect local laws and the local culture.”It is unclear whether Griner had drugs in her luggage, and American officials have repeatedly accused Russia of detaining U.S. citizens for specious reasons. But those close to Griner appear to be following one of the strategies employed by those surrounding Ball, Hill and Riley in 2017: creating as little public noise as possible.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More