It’s the end of the nightmare for Brittney Griner. Sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia for drug possession and trafficking, following her arrest at Moscow airport, the American basketball player explained that she had simply packed her bags too quickly, forgetting the cannabis oil in her cigarette cartridges electronic.
An oversight with terrible consequences, in a particularly tense geopolitical situation between the United States and Russia. Held in preventive detention for months and sentenced, she had recently been transferred to a penal colony in Mordovia. In the end, she did not stay there very long because CBS News explains that she was freed by Russia, in a prisoner exchange with Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer who inspired the film “Lord of War” and who was serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States.
The exchange only includes Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout, and Paul Whelan, a former soldier sentenced to sixteen years in prison in Russia for “espionage” in 2020, therefore remains incarcerated in Russia.
