Griner sentence puts ‘hostage diplomacy’ in spotlight By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022

Opinion

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This article was published 09/08/2022 (870 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chantal Kreviazuk is not allowed to enter Russia. Brittney Griner is not allowed to leave.

While the forced exclusion of Ms. Kreviazuk announced last Friday is of little consequence to anyone, including her, Ms. Griner’s imprisonment in Russia has become an international incident that has significant ramifications for how the U.S. conducts hostage diplomacy throughout the world

Winnipeg-born Ms. Kreviazuk, who is proud of her Ukrainian heritage, has joined Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson and refugee activist Lloyd Axworthy on the Kremlin’s “blacklist” of Canadians decrying the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine.

The singer-songwriter said she will continue speaking out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and she laughed off the ban: “I’m not planning to go, so it’s OK.”

Ms. Griner’s circumstances are considerably more dire. One of the best basketball players in the world, she was entering Russia to play club basketball during the WNBA off-season when she was arrested with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. A Russian court sentenced her last Thursday to nine years in prison for drug smuggling.

An initial reaction from many people has been to consider Ms. Griner’s plight a cautionary reminder for citizens of countries such as Canada, where cannabis products are legal, that the narcotic remains prohibited in most countries of the world. When travelling internationally, leave the cannabis at home.

But her circumstances have also ignited several larger issues owing to the prisoner’s celebrity and the length of her sentence, which seems extreme for someone who said the offence was accidental, that she packed quickly and didn’t realize she had the cannabis oil, which she uses for pain relief on the advice of a doctor.

In the U.S., the matter reached the top, with President Joe Biden weighing in, calling the sentencing “unacceptable.” The White House intervention led to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking last week to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, proposing a deal under which Ms. Griner and Paul Whelan, an American jailed in Russia on espionage charges, would be returned to the U.S..

Their freedom would come at a high price, however, as sources say the other side of the deal would have the U.S. release infamous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, a.k.a. The Merchant of Death. He was convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization, and is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S.

International prisoner swaps and hostage diplomacy are nothing new, of course. There are more than a dozen other American citizens who, according to their family and friends, are falsely held on trumped-up charges in the prisons of foreign countries.

U.S. government negotiators prefer to work behind the scenes on such cases, but the headline-grabbing imprisonment of Ms. Griner has torn off the blanket of secrecy under which such diplomats usually negotiate. If the U.S. agrees to a prisoner swap, the arrangement to free a famous athlete would be widely known through the world.

Ms. Griner’s many fans have pointed to American opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the real impetus for her lengthy sentence and insist she is a “political pawn.” Their characterization may be true, but proficient chess players think ahead a few moves to the ramifications of protecting a pawn.

Making a deal for Ms. Griner could signal to copycats the worth of imprisoning Americans, especially of the high-profile variety, who are travelling internationally and could be used for negotiation leverage. Any arrangement to free Ms. Griner could turn out to be about much more than Ms. Griner.