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Russian arms dealer says he wished Griner good luck at prisoner exchange

Russian arms dealer says he wished Griner good luck at prisoner exchange

VIKTOR Bout, the arms dealer freed in a prisoner swap for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, said he wished her good luck on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi where they were exchanged. Bout, who spent 14 years in U.S. jail for arms trafficking, money laundering and conspiring to kill Americans, was swapped on Thursday for the basketball star, jailed this year for bringing cannabis vape oil when arriving to play for a Russian team. Russia's FSB security service released images of the two being led past each other on the tarmac at the airport in Abu Dhabi during the swap,…
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Brittney Griner released from Russian custody in prisoner swap with Viktor Bout

Brittney Griner released from Russian custody in prisoner swap with Viktor Bout

NANDITA BOSE and HUMEYRA PAMUK U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia in exchange for Viktor Bout, a former arms dealer, and was heading back to the United States, ending what President Joe Biden called months of "hell" for her and her wife. The swap was arranged after talks spanning months during a time of high tensions between the two countries in the wake of Russia's February invasion of Ukraine. The exchange took place in the United Arab Emirates at Abu Dhabi airport, where the two walked past each other on a tarmac, a U.S. administration…
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Brittney Griner faces bleak life in Russian penal colony

Brittney Griner faces bleak life in Russian penal colony

MARK TREVELYAN, FILIPP LEBEDEV and SIMON LEWIS TEDIOUS manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care - such are the conditions awaiting U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence. It's a world familiar to Maria Alyokhina, a member of the feminist art ensemble Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years as an inmate for her part in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral against President Vladimir Putin. The first thing to understand, Alyokhina said in an interview, is that a…
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