- Mar 9, 2011
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Apparently they're as perplexed as everyone else.
"CNN — It is the most uneven of swaps at the most unlikely of times, but perhaps the intense pressure of this moment is why the exchange of a US basketball star for a Russian arms dealer ended up happening now.
On the surface, Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout are accused of ludicrously different crimes. Griner was sentenced to a Russian penal colony for possession of a single gram of cannabis oil. Bout is allegedly the most prolific arms dealer of the past decades, fuelling conflicts in Africa and beyond – and more specifically being convicted in a US court of plotting to kill Americans.
But the circumstances and political pressure on both sides reversed this imbalance. Griner gained a significance to Americans – based on her claims of innocence and her blatant seizure as a geopolitical pawn on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – that mandated the Biden administration to begin negotiations with the Kremlin at the worst point of US-Russian relations since at least the end of the Cold War.
Bout’s outsized importance to Russia has always been the bigger puzzle. How can one man be so valuable to Moscow they spend decades seeking his release at whatever level they can, and also be just an innocent and unfortunate global pilot and tradesman, as he has claimed? Who is this guy who denies everything?"
Why Viktor Bout's return to Russia is so important for Vladimir Putin | CNN
"CNN — It is the most uneven of swaps at the most unlikely of times, but perhaps the intense pressure of this moment is why the exchange of a US basketball star for a Russian arms dealer ended up happening now.
On the surface, Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout are accused of ludicrously different crimes. Griner was sentenced to a Russian penal colony for possession of a single gram of cannabis oil. Bout is allegedly the most prolific arms dealer of the past decades, fuelling conflicts in Africa and beyond – and more specifically being convicted in a US court of plotting to kill Americans.
But the circumstances and political pressure on both sides reversed this imbalance. Griner gained a significance to Americans – based on her claims of innocence and her blatant seizure as a geopolitical pawn on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – that mandated the Biden administration to begin negotiations with the Kremlin at the worst point of US-Russian relations since at least the end of the Cold War.
Bout’s outsized importance to Russia has always been the bigger puzzle. How can one man be so valuable to Moscow they spend decades seeking his release at whatever level they can, and also be just an innocent and unfortunate global pilot and tradesman, as he has claimed? Who is this guy who denies everything?"
Why Viktor Bout's return to Russia is so important for Vladimir Putin | CNN
