WNBA star Brittney Griner was detained in Russia but was swapped for arms dealer Viktor Bout in a very controversial trade, but she thought that US Marine Paul Whelan was part of the trade and would be coming back to America with her, as revealed by ABC’s Robin Roberts.
Roberts said to her colleagues that Griner will be addressing the details of her trade when she does a GMA interview soon.
Brittney Griner returns to the USA team for first time since Tokyo Olympics
She was held captive in Russia for 10 months after being arrested in Moscow for the possession of drugs. She was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison after being caught with a cannabis oil cartridge while returning to Russia to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.
“She said she got on the plane thinking that Paul Whelan was going to be on that plane, too,” Roberts told her co-hosts, while discussing Griner‘s organization aimed at helping other imprisoned Americans overseas. “It’s called ‘Bringing Our Families Home,’ to help with the effort to free other detainees.”
Griner discusses her Russian detainment
Griner‘s interview will air on May 1 as she continues preparing for her second WNBA season since her release.
As she revealed to Roberts, Griner‘s first thought upon being arrested amid the growing Ukrainian-Russian conflict was: “My life is over right here.
“I was just so scared. There was so much I didn’t know.” She was taken to a camp in Mordovia with a fierce reputation.
Griner described seeing a ‘huge knife’ on a table at the prison camp and thinking: “I was just like, no, this is going to be a ride. Do what you got to do to survive.”
The conditions, she said, were ‘less than human.’
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