Sec. of State Blinken: U.S. to Pursue Prisoner Swap With Russia

Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that the department will reengage with Russia regarding a prisoner swap following an announcement from a top Kremlin official who said the country was “ready” for such talks.

In a shocking turn away from standard U.S. procedure, Blinken notified reporters last month that the United States had made a “substantial” offer to the Kremlin to get WNBA superstar Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan back, both of whom are Americans who were convicted in Russia’s judicial system, which overwhelmingly results in guilty verdicts, despite the administration’s belief that they are being wrongfully detained. It is widely speculated that the exchange would be for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The announcement of the offer occurred during Griner’s trial, and the Russians, who publicly noted Blinken’s surprising admission, essentially held off until Griner’s trial had concluded. She was sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges Thursday after she pleaded guilty.

BRITTNEY GRINER TRIAL: WNBA STAR FOUND GUILTY AND SENTENCED TO NINE YEARS

Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were both in Cambodia on Friday for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit. While there, the Kremlin leader revealed that Russia is “ready” to discuss a deal and that President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden had previously agreed on a diplomatic channel that should be used to discuss prisoner exchanges.

“We are ready to discuss this topic, but within the framework of the channel that was agreed upon by Presidents Putin and Biden,” Lavrov stated. “If the Americans decide to once again resort to public diplomacy … that is their business, and I would even say that it is their problem.”

Following his comments, Blinken responded, “What Foreign Minister Lavrov said this morning, and said publicly, is that they are prepared to engage through channels we’ve established to do just that, and we’ll be pursuing that.”

Griner’s conviction, he said, “further compounds the injustice that’s being done to her and her wrongful detention. It puts a spotlight on our very significant concern with Russia’s legal system and the Russian government’s use of wrongful detentions to advance its own agenda, using individuals as political pawns. The same goes for Paul Whelan.”

A spokesperson for the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs declined to provide details on how Griner’s case has changed given her conviction.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that Russia would not discuss a possible deal publicly, saying, “If we discuss through the press some exchange-related nuances, then these exchanges will never take place. The Americans have already made this mistake,” according to CNN.

While the U.S. supposedly offered Bout for Griner and Whelan, the Russians allegedly rebuffed the deal and asked for the inclusion of a former colonel from the country’s domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder in Germany last year.

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Griner was detained in a Moscow-area airport in February after bringing vape cartridges with her into the country and has been detained since then. She said during the trial that it was unintentional and that she was prescribed them for pain.

Professor Peter Maggs, an expert on Russian law who teaches at the University of Illinois’s law school, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that Griner will be sent to a penal labor camp to serve her sentence, though he doesn’t think it’ll be one of the harsher ones in Russia.

Maggs expects Griner’s attorneys will appeal the decision but thinks it’s “very unlikely” that it’d get reversed, though he said there was a small chance her sentence could be reduced. It could be a matter of days, weeks, months, or years until both sides agree to a swap, Maggs noted, referring to the negotiations as “a bargaining game exchange.”

Russia and the U.S. agreed to a prisoner swap this spring that resulted in Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine whom the government also considered wrongfully detained, returning to the U.S. in exchange for Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko. Reed’s deteriorating health affected the president’s call to make the deal.

The U.S. and Russia’s diplomatic ties have reached recent lows following a February invasion of Ukraine that has destroyed the country’s infrastructure, killed thousands, displaced millions, and risked a global food shortage during the war’s first six months.