WASHINGTON – Brittney Griner, the American basketball star imprisoned in Russia, was released on Thursday after 10 months of captivity after President Joe Biden agreed to a swop for Viktor Bout, an imprisoned Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death”, officials said.

Griner, an All-Star centre with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was serving a nine-year prison sentence that put her at the centre of a fraught geopolitical showdown between Washington and Moscow. In February, she was stopped at an airport near Moscow after customs officials found two vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.

Her case became an international cause because she was seen as a hostage held by President Vladimir Putin’s government as Russia was subjected to a broad swath of international sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine a week after her arrest.

The United Arab Emirates president and Saudi crown prince led mediation efforts that secured the release of Griner, a joint UAE-Saudi statement said on Thursday.

Griner arrived in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi by private plane from Moscow after her release by Russian authorities, the statement said, as Russian citizen Bout came in on another private plane from Washington after being released by US authorities.

“The success of the mediation efforts was a reflection of the mutual and solid friendship between their two countries and the United States of America and the Russian Federation,” the joint statement said.

It “highlighted the important role played by the leaderships of the two brotherly countries in promoting dialogue between all parties”.

The Biden administration’s efforts to negotiate a prisoner swop with Russia for her and Paul Whelan, another American held prisoner, had stalled for months as she was sent to a penal colony outside Moscow.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both traditional U.S. allies, are members of the OPEC+ oil producers alliance that includes Russia and have resisted Western pressure to help isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Their mediation reflects efforts to show their ties with Russia are of benefit to Washington.

Griner was described by one of her lawyers this fall as struggling emotionally and increasingly worried that she would not be freed. She was permitted outside once a day to walk for an hour in a small courtyard, according to her lawyer, and otherwise confined to a cramped cell with two cellmates. She slept on a specially elongated bed to accommodate her 6-foot-9 frame.

American officials met with her in the penal colony last month for the first time since a Russian court rejected her appeal and reported that she was doing “as well as can be expected”, as a White House spokesman put it at the time. Griner turned 32 while in custody and her family continued to press for her release.

Whelan, a former US Marine who later worked as a corporate security executive, was arrested at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 and convicted in June 2020 on espionage charges that the US government says were manufactured. Administration officials sought his release as part of a package deal with Griner for Bout.

The trade for Bout gave Moscow back one of the most notorious arms dealers of modern times, earning the nickname “Merchant of Death” as he evaded capture for years. The 2005 film Lord Of War starring Nicolas Cage was inspired by his escapades. He was convicted in 2011 by a New York jury on four counts that included conspiring to kill American citizens. Prosecutors said he had agreed to sell anti-aircraft weapons to drug enforcement informants who were posing as arms buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

In July, American officials expressed frustration publicly that their Russian counterparts were refusing to engage in what the officials called a “substantial offer” to secure her release in exchange for Bout. For months, American diplomats said that Mr Putin seemed uninterested in even discussing the offer.

Earlier this month, a top Russian diplomat said publicly that the chance for a deal that would free Griner was increasing. But US officials dismissed his comments, saying that they continued to be stonewalled by the Russians, who were not seriously negotiating a deal for Bout.

The swap might have been an effort by Mr Putin’s government to divert attention from Russia’s flailing war efforts in Ukraine and the attention focused on President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was named Time magazine’s person of the year on Wednesday.

Ukrainian forces in recent days have struck Russian military bases inside Russian territory with long-range drones, an escalation in the conflict that may have rattled Moscow. A Russian artillery barrage on a market in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kurakhove on Wednesday killed at least 10, according to Ukrainian authorities. NYTIMES