Russian diplomat confirms talks with US to exchange Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout, #Russian #diplomat #confirms #talks #trade #Brittney #Griner #Viktor #Bout Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
A Russian diplomat has confirmed that Moscow is negotiating a prisoner exchange involving Brittney Griner and notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The American basketball player was sentenced to nine years in Russia earlier this month for a small amount of cannabis oil found in her luggage at an airport in Moscow.
The White House has reportedly offered to trade the imprisoned Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in the US, for WNBA player and former Marine Paul Whelan.
“The discussions on the very sensitive topic of an exchange are going through the channels chosen by our presidents,” said Alexander Datchiev, head of the North America branch of the Russian foreign ministry, according to the state news agency TASS.
“Silent diplomacy continues and should pay off if Washington is careful not to fall into propaganda.”
Bout, a 55-year-old former Soviet army officer, was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 during a covert operation in which US officials impersonated Colombian rebels. He was held in Thailand for two years before being extradited to the US for trial.
In April 2012, a US judge sentenced him to 25 years for selling heavy weapons to Colombian ‘rebels’.
Bout, 55, had agreed to sell 100 portable surface-to-air missiles and about 5,000 AK-47 rifles to Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces at a meeting at a Bangkok hotel.
But instead, he had actually sat down with US Drug Enforcement Administration officials masquerading as members of the left-wing guerrilla group that the US classified as a terror organization.
Whelan was convicted of espionage in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Last week, former UN ambassador Bill Richardson, who has worked to free Griner, said he was “optimistic” that she would be returned to US soil in a prisoner swap.
“I think she will be released,” Mr Richardson said This week host George Stephanopoulos.
“I think she has the right strategy of repentance, a good legal team. However, there is going to be a prisoner swap. And I think it’s going to be two-on-two with Paul Whelan. We cannot forget him. He is also a US Marine who is being wrongly detained.”