Don’t know where this belongs. Mods, feel free to move it.
Glad to see it!
Viktor was always going to be the desired Russian swap for her, but I’m sure the right wing will howl over it anyway.
My right wing acquaintances thought that Brittney got what she deserved and should serve out her sentence.
Thank God it’s over! It’s also the first time Brittney has ever been “traded”. LOL
We traded a dangerous, hard-assed criminal for her, so the Russians made out well in the deal. We should have gotten her AND, “an innocent imprisoned civilian to be named later”.
Do you suppose this became more likely after the midterms were over and Russia no longer had a compelling interest in helping portray Biden as a flailing hapless weakling in order to indirectly boost the GOP?
I was glad to see this. Yeah, we let an arms smuggler be traded, she shouldn’t have brought the dope oil, yaddayaddayadda, but a penal colony is something nobody should ever experience.
An arms trader that appears to have served 10 years of his 25 year sentence. Time off for not so bad behavior?
It’s not surprising that the WH caved in. Paul Whelan gets left behind. Traded a major arms dealer for a pot smoker.
Only makes sense because the WH will get a major political boost. The upcoming photo op of Biden and Grier will be major news. There will probably be a basketball somewhere in that photo. 
How long will it take before Viktor Bout is back in business? Russia is running out of arms. Viktor will be very useful.
More like they took what they could get with what they had. That’s how negotiations work.
Should he had left her to suffer because Putin wouldn’t trade both?
The deal was pretty lopsided. It took ten years for the US to arrest Viktor Bout.
We could have held our cards longer.
The one for one trade would have still been possible later. Russia needs Viktor Bout’s services. He should still have contacts in the blackmarket.
I am glad that Griner will soon back home with family.
I sincerely doubt Russia lacks contacts with arms dealers.
It will be interesting to hear what Griner has to say once she’s free to tell her side of what happened.
Why else would Russia want Viktor Bout back?
Unless they remember he was selling Soviet weapons and emptying warehouses.
I haven’t heard if that was connected to the government or Bout may have paid people to look the other way.
I know Russia found some nasty surprises when they dug deep into their weapons stockpile this summer.
It’s harder to recruit people to do your dirty work if they don’t think you have their back when the shit hits the fan.
I’m genuinely curious about what he still has to offer the Russian government. Maybe the Kremlin just likes the optics of trading a black, female, drug-using, basketball player for an arms dealer. That’s quite a lot of grist for the ol’ MAGA mill.
WNBA starts May 19. They’re moving from 36 to 40 game schedule. Griner should be ready. Unless she got injured in Russian custody.
Not sure how I feel about this. The cynical side of me says “photo op” for Biden. She was there for about 20 minutes, while Whelan has been in prison for four years now. Taking drugs across borders is an incredibly stupid thing to do, particularly when you’re traveling to countries hostile to the US. But she’s a gay black star athlete, so the aesthetics are better for the left. Meanwhile a Marine veteran rots in a Russian prison, with no relief in sight, and we’ve traded away a person that our government has dubbed “The merchant of death”. Unless he’s been lobotomized, that’s going to come back to us in the form of dead people. But at least sports fanatics will be pleased with the outcome.
It sounds like you know how you feel about this.
Yeah, I’m not entirely sympathetic with Ms Griner. Russia saw an opportunity and took it, and I guess Biden really didn’t have much choice, given the political optics. I’m happy for her that she’s out of there, and for her family; I just wish that Biden could have gotten a better deal for our side.