WNBA star Brittney Griner, who spent 10 months detained in Russia, mentioned she is “head over heels” after the discharge of People Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, who had been free of Russia in a prisoner swap.
“Nice day,” Griner mentioned from Paris, the place she is competing in girls’s basketball for Group USA on the Olympics. “I am head-over-heels completely satisfied for the households proper now. Any day that People come house, that is a win.”
Brittney Griner of the U.S. is roofed by Belgium’s Elisa Ramette and Belgium’s Emma Meesseman throughout a girls’s basketball sport on the 2024 Paris Olympics, Aug. 1, 2024, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France.
Michael Conroy/AP
Griner, who spoke to reporters after the U.S. girls beat Belgium 87-74 to advance to the quarterfinals, mentioned discovering out about their launch was “positively emotional.”
“I am certain it is going to be much more emotional just a little afterward. Yeah, I am simply completely satisfied. This was a giant win. Large win,” Griner mentioned.
“I do know they’ve a tremendous group of individuals which might be going to assist them out — them and their households,” she mentioned, including that she was “glad” to obtain that assist herself to “get reacclimated into on a regular basis life.”
Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi of the U.S. stroll off the courtroom after they defeated Belgium in a girls’s basketball sport on the 2024 Paris Olympics, Aug. 1, 2024, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France.
Michael Conroy/AP
In a press release shared on Instagram late Thursday night time, Brittney and spouse Cherelle Griner mentioned they had been “overwhelmed with pleasure and reduction for the 4 U.S. residents who returned safely to America at the moment.
“The Biden-Harris Administration confirmed true management as soon as once more by doing no matter it took to convey People house. Each American returned is a win,” their assertion continued.
The Griners mentioned that whereas “at the moment is certainly one of celebration,” their “hearts exit to the various People nonetheless being held hostage abroad, and their households.”
They concluded their submit by calling for folks to “proceed to do all the pieces we will to shine a light-weight on the remaining People detained.”
In February 2022, whereas returning to Russia to play basketball throughout the WNBA’s offseason, Griner was detained at Russia’s Sheremetyevo Worldwide Airport after she was accused of getting vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is unlawful within the nation. The State Division mentioned she was wrongfully detained.
USA’s Brittney Griner appears to be like on previous to the ladies’s preliminary spherical group C basketball match between USA and Japan throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games on the Pierre-Mauroy stadium, July 29, 2024, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France.
Sameer Al-doumy/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
In July 2022, Griner pleaded responsible to drug expenses, saying that the vape cartridges containing hashish oil had been in her baggage unintentionally. She testified that she had “no intention” of breaking Russian regulation and packed the cartridges by chance.
The WNBA star was launched in December 2022 after U.S. officers agreed to swap her for convicted Russian arms vendor Viktor Bout.
Brittney Griner speaks with Robin Roberts throughout an interview with ABC Information.
ABC Information
Griner instructed “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts earlier this yr she anticipated to additionally see Whelan there when she was boarding the airplane to depart Russia.
“After I walked on and I did not see him, I used to be like, ‘OK, perhaps I am early. Perhaps he is subsequent. Perhaps they’re going to convey him subsequent,'” she mentioned of Whelan. “And once they closed the door, I used to be like … are you critically not gonna let this man come house proper now?”
Journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage expenses, appears to be like out from inside a defendants’ cage earlier than a listening to to think about an attraction on his prolonged pre-trial detention, on the Moscow Metropolis Court docket in Moscow, Feb. 20, 2024. Paul Whelan, a former Marine accused of spying and arrested in Russia stands inside a defendants’ cage throughout a listening to at a courtroom in Moscow, Aug. 23, 2019.
AFP/Getty Photographs
“If it was left as much as me in that commerce, I might have went and obtained Paul and introduced him house,” Griner mentioned.
After her launch, Griner grew to become an advocate for People wrongfully detained overseas.
Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested in 2018 and accused of espionage. Each the Biden and Trump administrations denied the allegation towards Whelan. He was convicted on the fees in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in jail.
Gershkovich, a Wall Road Journal reporter, was arrested by Russian authorities in 2023 for espionage, a cost he and U.S. officers flatly deny, with President Joe Biden saying he was focused for being a journalist and an American. After an unusually hasty trial that performed out behind closed doorways, Gershkovich was discovered responsible and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
Two others unjustly imprisoned in Russia, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, had been additionally launched in Thursday’s swap, Biden mentioned.
ABC Information’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.