Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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      Griner’s Detention Showed the Strength and the Struggle in Women’s Sports

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      Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could be described through the lens of war and politics, with Griner, one of the world’s best basketball players, a casualty of an international struggle between superpowers.But in the nearly 10 months she was imprisoned until her release on Thursday, Griner became a symbol of much more: the inequities in men’s and women’s sports, the complexity of the fight for social justice, and especially the power of the W.N.B.A.’s players and their supporters, who steadily rallied for Griner’s freedom.“Women, when we’re advocating for something, when we want something to happen, we’ve got the strength of 10 men,” said Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. She added, “I hope people are watching.”Griner was released from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony in August, about six months after she was detained at an airport near Moscow when customs officials found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, heightening tensions between the United States and Russia.As the war in Ukraine complicated the White House’s negotiations for Griner’s release, the W.N.B.A. players’ union spearheaded a public campaign to free her. The players have earned a reputation for potent activism: In 2020, their support helped fuel the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s victory in a Georgia Senate race, and they dedicated their season to fighting systemic racism. This time, they leaned on President Biden to help one of their own.“We realized what power our voices have,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “Doing it for Brittney, I don’t think it was a burden for anyone.”Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, thanked the W.N.B.A.’s “fearless union,” in a statement celebrating Griner’s release.Disparities in SportsGriner, left, in 2021, alongside Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird. Griner has long been one of the W.N.B.A.’s top stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe spotlight of Griner’s detention brought questions about the modest W.N.B.A. salaries that push dozens of players to international teams in the off-season to make more money. Griner has been one of the W.N.B.A.’s biggest stars since the Phoenix Mercury drafted her No. 1 overall in 2013, and she won two gold medals with the U.S. women’s national team. Still, she was in Russia to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, which reportedly paid her at least $1 million, quadruple the maximum W.N.B.A. salary.“The players are going to do what they think is best for themselves,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said on Thursday, “but we definitely inform them all the time of the security risks of where they might be playing.”Dozens of American men still chose to play for Russian basketball teams during Griner’s detention, though most had little chance of making the N.B.A. But almost all American women stayed away. Many star W.N.B.A. players took pay cuts to compete for lower-paying teams in other European countries.Collier, who won the W.N.B.A. Rookie of the Year Award in 2019, said Griner’s “scary” ordeal had changed her mind about playing overseas again, even though staying home would cost her money and playing time. “For me, it’s not worth it,” she said.Since Engelbert became the commissioner in 2019, she has focused on adding sponsors and developing new ways for players to earn money, such as marketing deals with the W.N.B.A. But increasing the league’s profile and revenue has been a challenge in the face of a sports ecosystem that is mostly blind to female athletes because of its overwhelming focus on men’s sports.Big-name N.B.A. stars, such as LeBron James and Stephen Curry, leveraged that disparity and drew focus to Griner by publicly supporting her. But some critics wanted more vocal support for Griner from the N.B.A., which owns about 40 percent of the women’s league and has $10 billion in annual revenue. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said he had talked to political figures behind the scenes, but said government officials had asked the league to be low-key so as not to inflame tensions with Russia.Silver said in a statement on Thursday that he was happy Griner was coming home after enduring “an unimaginable situation.”Some have wondered whether an N.B.A. player like James would have been held as long as Griner, or detained at all. Before this episode, many average N.B.A. players would have been better known by the public than Griner, even though she’s at the top of her sport. The W.N.B.A.’s games can be hard to find, with broadcasts spread across multiple channels, streaming services and social media sites. The league has been around for 26 seasons, compared with 77 for the N.B.A.“We have to build more household names in this league,” Engelbert said.Gay, Black, Female and ‘Voiceless’Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressTed S. Warren/Associated PressGriner’s case was never simple. Even though she was said to have been in possession of only trace amounts of hashish oil, a cannabis derivative, she faced drug smuggling charges that carried the potential for a 10-year sentence. The U.S. State Department said in May that she had been “wrongfully detained,” indicating that she should be considered a hostage.“She was voiceless,” said Staley, who coached Griner on one Olympic team. “She was in a place that she couldn’t fight for herself. She couldn’t speak up for herself.”And Griner faced additional risks as a gay Black woman imprisoned in a country known for harsh treatment of people like her. In 2014, she became the first openly gay athlete to sign a deal with Nike. L.G.B.T.Q. civil rights groups, including the National Black Justice Coalition, have stood behind her. The coalition called Griner an “icon” and a “symbol of hope” in a statement as it thanked Biden for making her a “top priority.”It didn’t always seem that way to her supporters. As the months went by and Griner’s name dipped in and out of headlines, fans filled social media websites with the hashtag #WeAreBG to plead for people to care. Some pointed to Griner’s race as a potential factor in the broader public’s ebbing concern, saying that the falloff mirrored the way missing white women often draw more attention than missing Black women.Kagawa Colas, Griner’s agent, thanked “Black women, the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and civil rights leaders” in particular for standing with Griner.But even as Griner’s detention unified many athletes, fans and advocacy groups, it highlighted the unequal ways a push for justice could play out.“Brittney is going to have to endure the fact that we have people who are questioning why she’s home,” Staley said, referring to those who have criticized the government for not bringing home other wrongfully detained Americans. “Why did they choose her?”Experts have said that there are dozens of Americans held around the world, many of them classified as “wrongfully detained,” as Griner was. But often their families are their most vocal supporters, not legions of sports fans, famous athletes and other celebrities.Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife, said in a news conference with Biden on Thursday that their family would work to help free other detained Americans. Kagawa Colas said in her statement that “bringing our people home is a moral issue” and listed 13 Americans detained around the world that Griner’s closest supporters would work to release.“Our eyes have been opened through this process to your struggle and, as we have always done, B.G. and our coalition of activist athletes will ensure that silence is no longer an option,” she said. More

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

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      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

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      Brittney Griner’s Prison Term Is Upheld by Russian Court

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      The W.N.B.A. athlete is facing nine years in a Russian prison on a drug charge. A prisoner swap may be her only path home.A Russian appeals court on Tuesday upheld a nine-year prison sentence imposed on Brittney Griner, the American basketball star arrested after she arrived in the country carrying a small amount of hash oil.Ms. Griner has been jailed since her detention in February, and the new ruling may now pave the way for her transfer to a prison colony, although it was not clear when that might happen. Her lawyers said they might ask a higher court to intervene.“We need to discuss this with our client,” they said in a statement on Tuesday. “We generally think that we must use all the available legal tools, especially given the harsh and unprecedented nature of her sentence.”But higher courts in Russia are loath to overturn verdicts, especially if a case involves foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin, experts say, and the athlete’s fate may now be in the hands of Russian and American officials feeling each other out about a possible prisoner exchange.President Biden, asked what the United States would do now in the wake of the court ruling, said: “We are in constant contact with the Russian authorities to get Brittney and others out, and so far we have not been meeting with much positive response. But we’re not stopping.”The negotiation comes at a time of extraordinary tensions between the two countries over the war in Ukraine, and the ruling by the three-judge appeals panel Tuesday did nothing to change that.“We are aware of the news out of Russia that Brittney Griner will continue to be wrongfully detained under intolerable circumstances after having to undergo another sham judicial proceeding today,” Jake Sullivan, the American national security adviser, said in a statement.The State of the WarFears of Escalation: Western officials said Moscow was seeking to create a pretext for escalating the war by making false claims that Kyiv was preparing to detonate a dirty bomb on its own territory.Anti-Drone Warfare: Since Russia began terrorizing Ukrainian cities in recent weeks with Iranian-made drones, Ukraine has turned its focus to an intense counter-drone strategy. The hastily assembled effort has been surprisingly successful.A Devastated Land: Ukrainians who are returning to liberated towns are encountering destruction on a staggering scale, vital services cut and the prospect of a lethal winter ahead.A New Front?: Russia is massing thousands of troops in its western neighbor Belarus, raising fears that Moscow might plan to open another front in the war. But officials in Kyiv and Washington are casting doubt on whether the buildup represents a serious threat.Russian officials have said that prisoner exchanges cannot be considered until the legal process has concluded.From the very start, Ms. Griner’s case has become entangled with global tensions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.On Tuesday, as Ms. Griner appeared remotely in a Moscow courtroom, Russian and Ukrainian forces were battling over territory and concerns were rising that Moscow might be considering detonating explosives laced with radioactive material and blaming Ukraine.Days before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ms. Griner, an All-Star center with the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at an airport near Moscow after customs officials found two vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. She had been en route to Yekaterinburg, a city near the Ural Mountains, where she played for a women’s basketball team.Ms. Griner, who recently turned 32 in Russian custody, pleaded guilty to drug-smuggling charges and apologized for what she called an inadvertent offense. She apologized again on Tuesday before the appeals court ruled.From the very start, Ms. Griner’s case has become entangled with global tensions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press“I did not intend to do this,” she said via a video link from a detention cell, “but I understand the charges against me, and I just hope that that is also taken into account.”Addressing the court, she protested her unusually long sentence.“I’ve been here almost eight months,” she said, “and people with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given.”Since Ms. Griner was sentenced in August, her lawyers have argued that the nine-year prison term — near the 10-year maximum for such a conviction — is too harsh for a first-time offense and was politically motivated.“We are very disappointed,” her lawyers said in their statement Tuesday. “The verdict contains numerous defects, and we hoped that the court of appeal would take them into consideration. We still think the punishment is excessive.”Before the court ruled, the lawyers had appeared to be lowering expectations.“Brittney does not expect any miracles to happen,” they said, “but hopes that the appeal court will hear the arguments of the defense and reduce the number of years.”American officials contend that Russia, struggling under the weight of international sanctions imposed over the war, is hoping to use the athlete and another imprisoned American, Paul Whelan, a former Marine held since December 2018, as bargaining chips.Mr. Sullivan said on Tuesday that American officials had “continued to engage with Russia through every available channel” to secure the freedom of Ms. Griner and other Americans wrongfully detained in Russia.“The president has demonstrated that he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths and make tough decisions to bring Americans home,” Mr. Sullivan said.On the day a Russian appeals court upheld Brittney Griner’s sentence on drug smuggling charges, President Biden said that his administration would not stop trying to secure the basketball star’s release.Network PoolOne person briefed on the talks between Moscow and Washington this summer said that the United States had proposed exchanging Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for charges including conspiring to kill Americans.Mr. Biden and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are expected to attend a summit of Group of 20 leaders next month in Indonesia, but Mr. Biden has said he would speak with the Russian leader there only if it were to discuss Ms. Griner’s case.For American basketball players, playing in Russia during the off-season can be lucrative, but since Ms. Griner’s arrest, most W.N.B.A. players have shunned the country, and on Tuesday, the organization denounced the court decision.“This appeal is further verification that B.G. is not just wrongfully detained — she is very clearly a hostage,” it said.Ivan Nechepurenko More

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      War and Griner’s Arrest Don’t Deter U.S. Men From Russian Basketball

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      While American female basketball players have largely stayed away from Russia, dozens of American men have sought pay and career development in the country.The war in Ukraine and the imprisonment of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner in Russia have roiled geopolitics and all but shut down the pipeline of American female professionals playing in Russian leagues to earn far more than they can make in the United States.But Russians can still see Americans on their courts: Dozens of male players, including some with N.B.A. experience, are looking past the international conflicts and signing deals there, saying their careers and potential earnings are separate from politics. At least one American woman is also playing in Russia this season, for the same club that Griner played with in the country.“Russia wasn’t my first choice to come to,” said Joe Thomasson, 29, one of the American men playing in Russia. “It wouldn’t have been anybody’s first choice to come to if you were American, just dealing with the situation of Brittney Griner.”Although several agents did not respond to requests to be interviewed about their players in Russia, those who did identified roughly 30 American men’s basketball players who were competing or planning to soon compete in the country, about twice as many as usual. They can earn more than $1 million and often receive free housing and cars.“Everybody’s going to say, ‘Why would you go there?’” said K.C. Rivers, 35, who is in his first season with BC Samara and has played on other Russian teams. “But at the end of the day, you still have mouths to feed. You still have family to provide for. And sometimes it is not always the easiest decision, but you have to do what’s best for you. You can’t make decisions based off of what the general society says.”At least four of Rivers’s teammates are American.Many women’s basketball players who normally could have supplemented their modest W.N.B.A. salaries by playing in Russia during the off-season are avoiding the country — often in solidarity with Griner, who had played for UMMC Yekaterinburg — and signing contracts with teams in Turkey, Greece, Spain and other countries. The W.N.B.A. said it did not know of any of its players going to Russia. Alex Bentley, who last played in the W.N.B.A. in 2019, will play for UMMC Yekaterinburg for the second straight season.Griner has been at the center of a monthslong dispute with Russia. The U.S. government has said she was wrongfully detained at an airport near Moscow seven months ago when she was accused of bringing illegal narcotics — cannabis-infused vape cartridges — into the country as she traveled to play for her Russian team. She pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony in August but has appealed her conviction. U.S. and Russian officials have been discussing a prisoner swap that would free her.W.N.B.A. fans have pushed for Brittney Griner’s return from Russian imprisonment. Lindsey Wasson/Associated PressGriner earned about $230,000 as one of the best players in the W.N.B.A., but UMMC Yekaterinburg was reportedly paying her more than $1 million.“She was there for a reason,” said the agent Daryl Graham, whose client Bryon Allen is playing for Parma-Pari. “She made a lot of money there.”More on the W.N.B.A.Swan Song: Sue Bird, who had said she would retire after this season, shepherded the Seattle Storm to the playoffs. The team’s loss on Sept. 7 marked the end of her incredible career.Greatness Overshadowed: Sylvia Fowles, who has also announced her retirement from basketball, is one of the most successful American athletes ever. Why isn’t she better known?A Critical Eye: As enthusiasm for women’s basketball and the W.N.B.A grows, fans are becoming more demanding of the league and more vocal about their wishes.Making the Style Rules: Players in women’s basketball are styling themselves before the games. Their choices are an expression of their freedom, and can be lucrative too.He added: “It’s actually better for the players, because the teams are paying a premium now. They’re giving more money out to get the guys to come, because of the perception of what’s going on there.”One agent estimated that Russian teams have offered as much as 50 percent more than in previous years — and sometimes triple what teams in other countries pay — in order to persuade players to come.Bentley’s agent, Boris Lelchitski, said in an email that Bentley signed a one-year contract extension with UMMC Yekaterinburg in December and “had to make a difficult decision” to play in Russia. He said she did not have any offers from W.N.B.A. teams the past two seasons.“This is her opportunity to build her financial security,” he said.In a phone interview, Lelchitski said Bentley was “really good friends” with Griner and hoped that she would be freed from prison soon. He said Bentley felt comfortable returning to Russia because she has dual citizenship and plays as a European, and because there are many American men in Russia playing basketball.The State Department has advised Americans not to travel to Russia because of the war and the potential for harassment by Russian government officials. When contacted about the players in Russia, a spokesperson said that Americans “should depart Russia immediately” and that the embassy would have a “limited ability” to help them there.A spokesperson would not say how many U.S. citizens are thought to be in Russia but added that for emergency planning, embassies have constantly changing estimates of how many Americans are abroad.David Carro, who has been an agent for nearly two decades, represents Thomasson, Rivers and a handful of other players in Russia. He said players enjoyed going there because they can expect to be paid on time, the play is competitive, and they don’t have to pay for apartments and cars. He said Russia was not as dangerous as people might think because “there is a war in Ukraine. But in Russia, there is no war.”Rivers said of Samara, one of Russia’s largest industrial cities: “It’s normal here. Honestly, since I’ve been here, I haven’t heard anything about the war.”Nearly seven months after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, there is no end in sight for the conflict. All of the land warfare is happening in Ukraine, and the Kremlin has worked hard to minimize the effect on average Russians of the invasion — and the resulting sanctions imposed by Western nations. Although Ukraine recently recaptured large swaths of occupied territory in the northeast, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has shown no sign of backing down and has warned that he could further escalate his onslaught. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians are believed to have been killed.Thomasson, one of the American players, arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia, in late August with his fiancée, LaDresha Player Spear, and their three young children. Jet lagged and hungry after the long journey from Ohio, they headed to the grocery store.K.C. Rivers said he understood people may question his decision to play in Russia, but he wanted to make a living. Panagiotis Moschandreou/Euroleague Basketball via Getty ImagesThomasson wanted nothing more than to leave quickly after buying a few items. But when he offered a debit card and a credit card to the cashier, neither worked. Player Spear’s cards also were declined. They did not know that Mastercard and Visa had suspended operations in Russia because of the war. A woman in line overheard the frustrated couple and, realizing they were Americans, offered to pay for their groceries.Months ago, as Thomasson finished his season with a team in Manresa, Spain, he and Carro debated where he should play next. Thomasson, who has also played in Israel and Poland, has always regarded himself as an underdog and wanted to test himself in the Euroleague, Europe’s primary professional club competition. (Russia has since been suspended from the league because of the war, but its clubs still play within the country.)Zenit Saint Petersburg, a top Russian team, offered him a contract. Thomasson mulled the offer and talked to the coaching staff and Americans who had played there. He reassured concerned family members. But he deleted his Twitter account after other users criticized him for making the deal.Carro had advised Thomasson not to worry about politics.“The common people are not very well-informed about the situation, and they want to make sports and sportsmen suffer for a political and geopolitical problem,” Carro said. “Of course, it is a very big problem and of course it should be worrying for all of us. But I don’t think the front where we should be fighting is the sports front, because those people in the clubs, they are not guilty of what’s going on.”He rebuffed those who tried to talk him out of sending players to Russia, pointing to the dangers in the United States in places like Texas “where everybody carries a gun, where there has been shootings in the schools or in a supermarket.”He added, “It all depends on how you see things.”The Russian basketball clubs will play fewer games this season because of their suspension from Euroleague competition. CSKA Moscow, UNICS Kazan and Zenit Saint Petersburg participated in the Euroleague last season, but had their results expunged.“Just because I’m not competing in the Euroleague doesn’t make me not a Euroleague player,’’ Thomasson said. “It just means more money for less work. That’s the approach that I took.”Zenit Saint Petersburg and Anadolu Efes Istanbul in the Euroleague last season.Sergey Grachev/Euroleague Basketball via Getty ImagesJermaine Love, a 33-year-old guard from outside of Chicago, is living in Russia for the first time after signing with BC Nizhny Novgorod. He has played for teams in Poland, Greece, Italy and Israel but said “everyone” told him he was crazy for joining a Russian team. He felt reassured after talking to a friend from Chicago who briefly played for the team last season.Love has been in Nizhny Novgorod, a large city in the western part of Russia, for a few weeks and expects to remain in the country through the end of the season in May. His wife, Thalia Love, and their two young children plan to join him in December.“I want to be able to take care of my family,” Love said. “That’s my No. 1 job.”There are some minor inconveniences. He has spotty phone and internet service, so he often relies on sending voice notes to stay in touch with friends and family back home. Love said he was also relying on his faith.“I’m covered by the blood of God,” he said. “I know that things wouldn’t come to me if He wasn’t ready for me to pursue them. I wanted to come into this situation with an open mind, and that’s what I did. Everything is great so far.”In July, a client of the longtime N.B.A. agent Bill Neff asked him to gauge interest from Russian teams. Neff said a conversation with a Russian agent he had worked with before quickly steered into the other agent’s belief that the United States was at fault for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“I had a moral dilemma as to what to do,” Neff said. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m sending guys to a situation like that?’ So, I decided only if they re-ask me, I would do it, but other than that, I really struggled with it, where other agents have not, and it’s interesting.”He added: “When you see what’s happening to Brittney Griner, there’s a side of me that said: ‘How can I, in good conscience, send a player there? And if something goes wrong, what happens?’”The client asked again, so Neff tried to find him a deal, but no Russian team offered a contract, he said. Neff is now hoping for a resolution that allows him to feel safe sending clients into the country again.“Believe me,” he said, “if the war stops and things get back to normal, I’ll be the first one in line.”Scott Cacciola More

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      US Open a Coming-Out Party for Russian and Belarusian Tennis Stars

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      Wimbledon barred players from Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine. At their first Grand Slam since the French Open, Karen Khachanov and Aryna Sabalenka are making a run.Earlier in the summer, barred from Wimbledon after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian tennis stars spent time with their families or trained far from tennis’s spotlight. Aryna Sabalenka, practicing in Miami, said she turned off the television whenever Wimbledon was being broadcast.But the door to Grand Slam tennis reopened last week in New York, and they have seized the opportunity.Karen Khachanov, a bearded Russian extrovert with a big game and forehand, is into the men’s singles semifinals at the U.S. Open after defeating Nick Kyrgios in a late-night five-setter.Sabalenka, a powerful Belarusian who has often struggled this season, is back in the women’s singles semifinals after her authoritative victory, 6-1, 7-6 (4), over Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday and is playing and serving well enough to win her first Grand Slam singles title.One of those watching from the stands in Pliskova’s box was Olga Savchuk, a former Ukrainian tennis star who continues to oppose the Russians’ and Belarusians’ being allowed to play in this or any tournament.“I try not to think about it anymore when I’m watching because it brings me really, really down and brings a lot of emotions,” Savchuk said after Sabalenka’s victory. “I realize it’s tough to continue to live every day thinking about this constantly. So, I just realize that I cannot change the decisions which are not made by us and which we cannot control.”Savchuk, now retired, was the captain of the Ukrainian team that lost to the United States in the qualifying round of the Billie Jean King Cup in Asheville, N.C., in April. During that competition, Savchuk and the Ukrainian players expressed gratitude for the support they were receiving from the public but said that one of their biggest fears was that the war, which began in February, would become normalized and that global interest would wane.The Ukrainian team at the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying in Asheville, N.C., in April.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSavchuk, 34, believes that fear has become reality, even though she appreciates the efforts made by the U.S. Open to raise funds in support of Ukraine by staging a successful exhibition before the tournament.“I feel, overall, people are tired of it now, tired of hearing about it,” she said of the war. “Things are slowly changing that way, and so it’s like I should just go with it. And this is horrible, because for us, we cannot just go with it. Nothing has changed for us. It’s just worse. More time, more destruction, more losses.”Wimbledon’s controversial ban, the first of its kind at a major tennis tournament in the modern era, was made under considerable pressure from the British government, whose prime minister was then Boris Johnson.The British leadership wanted to avoid Wimbledon being used as propaganda by Vladimir V. Putin and the Russian government.Ukrainian players expressed deep appreciation for the ban and the support.“All of us, we wrote to the Wimbledon organization and the tournament director as well, and I talked to him personally,” Savchuk said.But the ban did not quite work as planned. The surprise women’s singles champion turned out to be Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who had agreed to represent Kazakhstan because of its financial support but long remained based in Moscow.Shamil Tarpischev, the longtime president of the Russian Tennis Federation, made a celebratory statement after her victory.Though Russia and Belarus were also barred from team tennis competitions such as the Davis Cup and King Cup after the invasion, their players have been allowed to continue participating as individuals in other tournaments without formal mention of their nationality. The U.S. Open is not announcing their nationalities during on-court introductions, and ESPN is not displaying their national flags in its coverage.Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who represents Kazakhstan, won Wimbledon this year.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThough both the men’s and women’s tours condemned the invasion of Ukraine, they strongly opposed Wimbledon’s ban, arguing that individuals should not be prevented from competing based on their nationality or on governmental decisions beyond their control.Concerned that Wimbledon’s move could set a precedent for future bans based on politics, the tours made the unprecedented decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points, essentially turning one of sport’s most prestigious events into an exhibition and contributing to Rybakina’s being seeded just 25th at the U.S. Open. (She lost in the first round on an outside court.)After lengthy deliberation, the board of the United States Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open, chose not to follow Wimbledon’s lead and allowed the Russians and Belarusians to compete.Four reached the round of 16 in both men’s singles and women’s singles, and while Khachanov and Sabalenka remain in contention, no Ukrainian players are left.It is an awkward scenario, but Lew Sherr, in his first year as the U.S.T.A.’s chief executive and executive director, emphasized on Wednesday that the U.S.T.A. “continued to condemn the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russia.” He said the U.S. Open had raised $2 million in humanitarian aid for Ukrainian relief. Some of that came from the “Tennis Plays for Peace” exhibition staged Aug. 24 in Arthur Ashe Stadium that featured the Spanish star Rafael Nadal and the No. 1 women’s player, Iga Swiatek of Poland.But even that initiative generated tension. Ukrainian players, including Marta Kostyuk, opposed the plan to include the Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka in the event, maintaining that Azarenka had not been supportive behind the scenes and that as an influential member of the WTA Player Council had played a role in stripping Wimbledon of points.Azarenka withdrew from the exhibition, and after she defeated Kostyuk in the second round, Kostyuk declined to shake hands with her at the net, tapping rackets instead.Victoria Azarenka, right, played against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine during the second round of the U.S. Open.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAzarenka, a former No. 1 who is one of Belarus’s biggest international stars, said after that match that she had reached out to the Ukrainian players she knew personally and offered behind-the-scenes assistance since the invasion but had not spoken with the 20-year-old Kostyuk.“I don’t feel that forcing myself to speak to somebody who maybe doesn’t want to speak to me for different reasons is the right approach,” she said. “But I offered.”Some Russian players have spoken out, including Daria Kasatkina, who has been bold enough to actually call the conflict “a war” and termed it “a full-blown nightmare.” “A lot of respect for her,” said Savchuk, who said she had since sent Kasatkina a message of appreciation.Like Azarenka, Sabalenka has met in the past with Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus who has cracked down on protest and been one of Putin’s staunchest allies.But Sabalenka has avoided public comment on the war while acknowledging that the situation has made it a challenge to perform.“It’s tough, and it’s a lot of pressure,” she said on Wednesday. “I’m just thinking in that way that I’m just an athlete, and I have nothing to do with politics.”She said she made use of the forced break during Wimbledon to work on improving her serve. But Sabalenka, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2021, said it was not easy to observe the tournament from afar.“Tough time,” she said. “Especially when I was working out in the gym, and there was Wimbledon playing on the TV. I was always turning it off because I couldn’t watch it.”Savchuk has struggled to watch television for different reasons in the past six months. Now based in London and the Bahamas, she was born and raised in Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region and still has family in Ukraine.Smoke from an artillery impact rising in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times“I have not seen my family, and until the war is over I don’t want to go there, and I miss them so much and more and more,” she said.She said she felt increasingly powerless and demoralized.“It kills you that you can’t change it,” she said. “I feel like we still are getting a lot of help around the world with money and donations, but I feel in people’s minds following the news, the interest has dropped. I even look at my Instagram whenever I post something about the war, people almost don’t look at it.”She said it stung to see Russian and Belarusian players competing down the stretch in the U.S. Open.“I was very disappointed that they were allowed to play,” she said. “But what kills me more is seeing Russian people continue living their happy lives and posting about it.”David Waldstein More

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      No Handshake After Ukrainian loses to Belarusian at U.S. Open

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      The bitterness and acrimony from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spilled onto the tennis courts of the U.S. Open again Thursday as Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3.Kostyuk, who has been outspoken in her belief that players from Russia and Belarus should be barred from the sport, refused to shake Azarenka’s hand after her defeat, opting only to tap rackets with Azarenka when it was over.In April, Kostyuk and several other players from Ukraine called for ruling organizations of tennis to ask players from Russia and Belarus if they supported the war and to denounce it if they did not. In the absence of declarations against the war, Kostyuk and the other Ukrainian players said the players from Russia and Belarus should be barred from any international event.“There comes a time when silence is betrayal, and that time is now,” the statement from the players said.Speaking with journalists at a news conference after the match, Kostyuk explained that she had no interest in shaking hands with players who had not spoken out publicly against the brutality of the war. She also criticized players from Russia and Belarus for not reaching out to players from Ukraine, several of whom have not been able to go home since Russia invaded their country in February.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.A Magical Run: As her successes on the field prove, Serena Williams did not come to New York to receive a ceremonial send-off, but to put her best on the line against the world’s finest players.In the Player’s Box: Fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium have been catching glimpses of her family and entourage. Here is a look at who has been in attendance to support her.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Field: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to one another.Kostyuk texted Azarenka before the match to tell her she would not be shaking her hand after the match, but the two did not speak beforehand.It was the second time in two weeks that Kostyuk went after Azarenka, who in years past made multiple appearances with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. Last week, Kostyuk pushed officials from the United States Tennis Association to prohibit Azarenka from participating in an exhibition to benefit relief efforts in Ukraine. On Thursday, she defended those actions, saying it would have been akin to having a German attend a benefit for European Jews during World War II.Azarenka had planned to participate in the benefit until Kostyuk and other players from Ukraine protested.Shortly after Kostyuk spoke Thursday, Azarenka held her own news conference and defended her actions. She said she had reached out to players from Ukraine but had sent the messages through intermediaries with the WTA Tour, which she helps run as a member of its Players’ Council.“I’ve had a very clear message from the beginning, that I’m here to try to help, which I have done a lot,” Azarenka said. “Maybe not something that people see. And that’s not what I do it for. I do it for people who are in need, juniors who need clothes, other people who need money or other people who needed transportation or whatever. That’s what is important to me, to help people who are in need.”Azarenka said if Kostyuk wanted to speak with her, she was “open any time to listen, to try to understand, to sympathize.” She added, “I believe that empathy in the moment like this is really important.”Tensions among players from the warring countries have been mounting for months.Iga Swiatek of Poland, the world No. 1, who has held her own fund-raiser for relief efforts in Ukraine and who has condemned the invasion, said the sport’s leaders missed an opportunity to manage those tensions when the war first broke out.“Right now, it’s kind of too late, I think, to fix that,” Swiatek said Thursday. “Right now, it’s easy to say that maybe there was lack of leadership, but at that time I didn’t know what to do either.” More

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      In First Round of the US Open, a Ukrainian Player Upset Simona Halep

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      Daria Snigur, 20, burst into tears after defeating Simona Halep of Romania, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, in three sets on Monday in the first round of the U.S. Open.Snigur, a Ukrainian who is ranked No. 124 in the world, was making her debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam singles tournament; she had to win three matches to qualify. Her win over Halep was her first career victory at the WTA Tour level.“When I was in the moment, I didn’t understand what happened,” Snigur told reporters after the match. “I think it was the best match in my career.”After Snigur’s win, her father, who was in the stands, put his hands on top of his head as if in disbelief.“My father didn’t understand, too,” Snigur said.Halep, the No. 7 seed, is coached by Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’s former coach. Halep had been given 8-to-1 odds to win the tournament before it began, according to SportsBetting.ag.“I had tickets tomorrow to Warsaw,” Snigur said.After shaking hands with Halep and the chair umpire, Snigur stepped back onto the court to wave at the crowd. She made a heart shape with her hands over a yellow-and-blue ribbon affixed to her top, a tribute to her country in the midst of war.“Ukraine is always in my heart,” Snigur said of the gesture. “This victory is for Ukraine.”While her father was able to travel with her for the tournament, Snigur said that her mother was still in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Leading up to the U.S. Open, Snigur said she trained in the Latvian capital of Riga because the tennis facility she used in Ukraine had been bombed by Russian forces.“Sometimes it’s impossible to play, but I try to do my best,” Snigur said. “I try to do the best for Ukraine. I try to support my country.”In another symbol of support for the country, the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York, an amateur ensemble that specializes in music from Ukraine, performed a song before Monday night’s match in Arthur Ashe Stadium between Serena Williams and Danka Kovinic. More