A former Russian ambassador to Washington D.C. is claiming that Joe Biden is desperately pushing the Russians to free jailed WNBA player Brittney Griner ASAP so that he has a “win” to help Democrats in the midterm elections.
Unfortunately for Griner, though, the Russians don’t see her problem as a priority, according to the New York Post.
“In this tense situation, the way I see it, [Biden] thinks first and foremost about the upcoming midterm elections, which is why he keeps bringing up the need to return the basketball player who was arrested for delivering drugs,” said ex-envoy Yuri Ushakov on the state-run Rossiya-1 channel.
Griner “is not the most important issue that concerns us,” Ushakov added.
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted to a courtroom for a hearing in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 27, 2022. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP)
Ushakov was Russia’s ambassador to D.C. from 1998 to 2008 and, since 2021, has been one of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy advisers.
Griner, of course, was arrested, leaving Moscow as Russia began its move on Ukraine.
The basketball player was convicted of possession and trafficking of drugs on August 4 and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. But immediately after the sentencing, Russian authorities hinted that they would accept a prisoner exchange with the United States to release the Olympic gold medal winner.
The Biden administration has reportedly offered convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been sentenced to 25 years in U.S. prison. In exchange for Griner and corporate security executive Paul Whelan, who had been imprisoned in Russia for alleged espionage that he denies.
Viktor Bout sits inside a detention cell at Bangkok Supreme Court on July 28, 2008, in Bangkok, Thailand. A Thai court postponed the extradition hearing of Viktor Bout for a second time after his attorney failed to turn up on Monday for the hearing to extradite Bout to the U.S. to face terrorism charges in connection to alleged arms smuggling. (Chumsak Kanoknan/ Getty Images)
Griner was ultimately handed a 9-1/2-year sentence that she has tried to appeal, but so far, to no avail.
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