INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia and the United States have exchanged the United States basketball star Brittney Griner for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor
drug charges, was released on Thursday in a one-for-one swap for Bout, an arms dealer who has been in a United States prison for the past
12 years.The exchange was approved by United States President Joe Biden last week and took place early on Thursday in the United Arab
would need time to recover from the "needless trauma" of her imprisonment in Russia, Biden nevertheless remarked that she was "in good
spirits.""She deserves space, privacy and time with her loved ones to recover and heal from her time being wrongfully detained," he
added.Griner was handed a nine-year sentence in August after customs officers at a Moscow airport found vape cartridges containing a small
quantity of cannabis oil in her luggage in February.While she pleaded guilty to the charges, Griner maintained she had no idea the vape
at the notorious "IK-2" penal colony in Mordovia, some 480 kilometers east of Moscow, a prison known for its poor conditions and harsh
treatment of inmates.Bout, whose gun running and murky dealings with warlords landed him the title the "merchant of death," landed at
Moscow's Vnukovo airport on Thursday evening, Russian state television reported.Biden also confirmed that despite Griner's release, the
other high-profile United States citizen jailed in Russia, Paul Whelan, remains detained."We have not yet succeeded in securing Paul's
release," Biden said of the former United States marine who was arrested in 2018 and accused of spying while visiting Moscow for a wedding,
adding that his administration was "not giving up, we will never give up."
