Brittney Griner was ready to talk on her 18-hour flight back to the United States earlier this week. According to special presidential envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens, who helped secure Griner’s release from a Russian prison, the WNBA star spoke with him and others for nearly two-thirds of the flight from the United Arab Emirates to San Antonio on Thursday. “When she finally got onto the U.S. plane, I said, ‘Brittney, you must have been through a lot over the last 10 months…. Source link
Read More »Inside the logistical chess match of a prisoner exchange
The scene looked like it was stolen from a Hollywood script. On one end of a Turkish airport tarmac sat a Russian federal security plane. On the other was a private jet owned by a U.S. government contractor. Both had landed in secrecy within minutes of each other on April 27 to conduct a high-value prisoner exchange on neutral soil. Trevor Reed, an American citizen and Marine veteran, was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 after he allegedly endangered the “life and health” of… Source link
Read More »Blinken urges Lavrov to accept proposed Brittney Griner prisoner swap
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on Friday about a U.S. proposal to secure the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and fellow jailed American Paul Whelan. Blinken said he “pressed the Kremlin to accept” the offer during what he described as a “frank and direct conversation.” “I urged Foreign Minister Lavrov to move forward with that proposal,” Blinken said. “I’m not going to characterize his response and I’m not… Source link
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