It’s been over a month since two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist Brittney Griner, 31, was detained in Russia after the country’s customs claimed to find hash oil in her luggage. Experts believe Russia is using Brittney as a “negotiating chip” against the U.S. and its allies in the invasion of Ukraine.
Brittney Griner plays for the Phoenix Mercury WNBA team but, in the offseason, plays in Russia. She was detained at Moscow airport on the 17th of February, 2022 – a week before Russia officially invaded Ukraine – on her way to begin the Russian basketball season. She now faces 10 years in prison.
Senior Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said, according to The Guardian, “I think there’s no doubt that her detention, and then this continuation of the imprisonment, is all to try to make her a hostage and a part of this chess game.”
“Vladimir Putin and the Russians want to use her as a negotiating chip and what a horrific thing to do to someone,” Kaine said.
Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee also fears Griner could be used as a political pawn. “I don’t underestimate anything that Russia would do,” Jackson Lee told the Hill.
Brittney’s legal team have declined to speak publicly, due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but they are reportedly working hard on her release. According to Ekaterina Kalugina, a member of Russia’s state-backed prison monitoring group, Brittney’s lawyers have been visiting her with care packages. Ekaterina claims Griner is “doing well.”
“Her physical condition is fine, she’s holding up fine and I’d even say that she is fairly calm and isn’t anxious.”
Brittney’s teammates have been keeping silent about the horrific ordeal to not hurt her case, but a couple of them have spoken up recently. “People are saying she’s 6-foot-9, she’s different. It’s really not about that,” said USA Basketball player Angel McCoughtry, to AP. “It could have been any of us.”
Breanna Stewart, who earns over $1 million USD to play for Russia, offered a similar statement. But she also called out the WNBA for not valuing their female players enough, causing them to play overseas in the offseason. “The big thing is the fact that we have to go over there. It was BG, but it could have been anybody…WNBA players need to be valued in their country and they won’t have to play overseas.”
The AP outlines that the WNBA has been working on increasing player salaries so they don’t have to find work overseas. “The WNBA has made strides to increase player salaries and find other ways to compensate players in the last collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified in 2020. The contract, which runs through 2027, pays players an average of $130,000, with the top stars able to earn more than $500,000 through salary, marketing agreements, an in-season tournament and bonuses.”
Alarmingly, Brittney Griner’s case hasn’t been afforded the extra level of government attention that wrongful convictions receive, thus far. “Of the thousands of U.S. citizens arrested and jailed in prisons abroad, a small subset are designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained — a category that affords their cases an extra level of government attention and places them under the auspices of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department. The U.S. government has not yet put Griner’s case in that category.”
Is this a political move, to not antagonize Russia by accusing its government of falsely detaining Brittney? Is it difficult to claim a wrongful conviction, especially if the country in question isn’t negotiable due to political tension? If the experts are right and Brittney Griner’s being used as a political pawn, then what does Russia want?
