The WNBA And NBA Call Brittney Griner’s 9-Year Sentence ‘Unjustified and Unfortunate’

Within minutes of the Russian judge’s sentencing of WNBA star Brittney Griner for conscious drug smuggling, President Joe Biden released a statement.

Biden said, “American citizen Brittney Griner received a prison sentence that is one more reminder of what the world already knew: Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney.”

Griner is facing nine years in a penal colony for possessing less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage when she arrived in Russia to play basketball. She said she did not know she had packed the oil, but Russian authorities accused Griner of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance. Russia detained Griner, who plays basketball in Russia during the WNBA’s offseason, in mid-February.

The sentence was not a surprise as supporters and political analysts say Griner has become a pawn in a high-stakes geopolitical showdown between the United States and Russia over Ukraine.

Negotiations between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to be tense with Putin relishing the detainment of the high-profile Griner as leverage.

Biden has offered a prisoner-exchange proposal. National Security Administration spokesman, John Kirby, declined to say if another proposal is expected.

“I don’t think it would be helpful to Brittney or to Paul for us to talk more publicly about where we are in the talks and what the President might or might not be willing do,” Kirby said, referring to Griner and Paul Whelan who is also being held in Russia.

Griner wrote a letter to Biden in July while her wife, Cherelle Griner, and WNBA colleagues have led a nationwide effort to keep her plight before the American people.

Griner’s attorneys said she could “hardly talk” after the verdict was read. Griner is being held in a prison on the outskirts of Moscow.