According to a senior administration official, the Biden administration secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from a Russian jail camp in return for an arms dealer. She was released on Thursday.
Paul Whelan, an American corporate security executive who is still imprisoned in Russia, had to be left behind, but President Joe Biden approved the deal, which was done in the United Arab Emirates.
According to a senior White House official, Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, was present in the Oval Office with Biden and the two were able to speak with her on the phone.
Viktor Bout, who Russian President Vladimir Putin had been hoping to have back and who had served 11 years of a 25-year sentence in the US, is now back in the Kremlin in what is one of the most high-profile prisoner swaps between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War.
The story of Griner's detention at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in February, when Russian investigators claimed to have discovered vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage, will come to an end with her return to the United States. She was later imprisoned on drug-related crimes.