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By Nandita Bose, Humeyra Pamuk and Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After months of grueling negotiations with Moscow, President Joe Biden’s administration is clear that it faces a stark choice – trading notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Bout for American basketball star Brittney Greener, otherwise no American takes home.
The prisoner exchange, approved by Biden himself on Thursday, was completed in the past 48 hours, sending Griner from his Russian penal colony to Moscow and then to an airport in the United Arab Emirates, U.S. officials said.
Left out of the deal was another high-profile U.S. detainee, Paul Whelan, who told CNN by phone that he was “very disappointed” that more was not being done to secure his release.
Greener arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, from Moscow by private jet, while Bout arrived from Washington in a private jet.
In a video released by Russia’s TASS news agency, the pair can be seen being escorted on the tarmac, passing each other on their way to the plane that will take them home. Griner, wearing a red jacket and dark pants, has his back to the camera. Nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” Bout embraced a Russian official who greeted him and smiled broadly as he was led away.
After months of fruitless negotiations between the United States and Russia, Greener’s brutal 10-month captivity has been complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations to their worst level since the Cold War.
A senior U.S. official said Biden had closely followed the talks himself, but it was only in recent weeks that he made the “very painful” decision to clemency Bout to complete the swap.
A joint UAE-Saudi statement said the UAE president and Saudi crown prince led mediation efforts to secure Griner’s release. But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed any notion of a mediating role, with U.S. officials expressing gratitude only to the UAE for providing “an important transit point to facilitate exchanges”.
A Biden administration official said U.S. officials had been pressing for the release of Greener and Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who Washington called “bogus” espionage charges, and had offered a variety of options, including sending the He was included in the prisoner exchange.
But Moscow insisted on treating Whelan’s case differently, the official said.
“It’s not a choice of which American to bring home,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a news conference with his Swedish and Finnish counterparts. “The choice is one or the other.”
sensitive negotiation
While the exact outlines of the final talks are unclear, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a week ago that intelligence services from both countries were discussing a potential prisoner swap with Washington and that he hoped they would be successful.
CIA Director William Burns and Russia’s foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin held talks in Turkey in November, the first publicly announced face-to-face talks between senior officials since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
U.S. officials said they were primarily focused on issues related to nuclear weapons, but Burns also cited the case of U.S. detainees in Russia. However, it was unclear whether any progress had been made on the issue at the time.
A high-level Gulf source said the UAE, trusted by both sides, “really helped facilitate exchanges,” adding that Putin and Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan may discuss the issue in a phone call on Wednesday. solved this problem.
Describing what happened to Greiner as months of “hell,” Biden said he had spoken to her and that she would be back in the United States within 24 hours.
Greiner, a 32-year-old star player for the Phoenix Mercury in the Women’s National Basketball Association, was arrested at an airport outside Moscow on Feb. 17 for having vaping pods laced with marijuana oil in her luggage.
She was subsequently convicted of drug smuggling and transferred to one of Russia’s most horrific exile colonies, where former prisoners described torture, harsh beatings and slave labor conditions.
Greiner traded for Bute, a former Russian arms dealer who was convicted in the United States and served 10 years in prison.
Chief U.S. hostage negotiator Roger Carstens met Greiner on the tarmac in the UAE during the prisoner swap. She was “smiling and very grateful for all the efforts from the USG (U.S. government) and outside the government to get her home,” a U.S. official said.
The exchange left Whelan still in Russian custody, a situation his family called a “disaster.” But U.S. officials insist he will not be forgotten, and they are continuing to work to secure his release.
“Negotiations … focused on bringing home two Americans who were wrongfully detained in Russia,” a US official said. Reina to bring home, or not to bring Americans home now.”
(Additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Humeyra Pamuk, Matt Spetalnick; Durfee)
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