 Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has just said that there has been new “activity” in the possibility of a prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan.
ESPN reported that Ryabbkov said, “The Americans are showing certain activity and we are working on this through appropriate channels.” Ryabkov acknowledged that the two countries have not yet been able to find ‘’common ground,” but he said Russia is “hoping for a positive result,” in discussions about swapping Griner and Whelan for Russian arms Dealer Viktor Bout. However, despite his optomistic statement, ESPN quoted a U.S. State Department spokesperson saying, “… that the Russian Federation has consistently failed to negotiate in good faith,” and that, “The Russian government’s failure to seriously negotiate on these issues in the established channel, or any other channel for that matter runs counter to its public statements.” Regarding the U.S. proposal for a prisoner swap, White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre said, ”… despite a lack of good faith negotiation by the Russians, the U.S. government has continued to follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with Russians through all available channels.” Griner has been in Russian custody since February when she was caught at Moscow’s International airport with a small amounf of cannabis vape cartridges. She was sentenced to 9 years in prison, and her appeal was denied. Earlier this month, she was transferred to a Russian penal colony. But Griner is of course not the only person in jail for cannabis. The organization called the Last Prisoner Project says that, “tens of thousands of cannabis prisoners [are sitting in a jail cell] today in the United States alone, [with] countless others languish[ing] in [other] jails and prisons worldwide.” Comments are closed.
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