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The White House underscored Thursday that the administration is “willing to take every step necessary” to bring home American basketball player Brittney Griner.
Watch the briefing in the player above.
Griner was convicted and sentenced earlier in the day to nine years in prison for drug possession and smuggling.
“Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney. She never should have had to endure a trial in the first place,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the briefing. “We have made a substantial offer to bring her and Paul Whelan home. We urge Russia to accept that proposal.”
Griner, recognized as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, has been detained since Feb. 17 after police said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage upon landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
The nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years that Griner had faced under the charges. Most Russians possessing small quantities of drugs get at most five years in prison, lawyers said.
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National Security Council spokesman John Kirby followed Jean-Pierre, saying President Joe Biden is “personally involved” in the talks to release Griner and bring her home, along with Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia on an espionage conviction.
President Joe Biden called Griner’s detention wrong and unacceptable in a statement Thursday.
Kirby also confirmed a U.S. intelligence report determining that Russia is looking to plant false evidence to make it appear that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the July 29 attack on Olenivka Prison that left 53 dead and wounded dozens more.
“We anticipate that Russian officials will try to frame the Ukrainian armed forces in anticipation of journalists and potential investigators visiting the site of the attack,” Kirby said.
Russia has claimed that Ukraine’s military used U.S.-supplied rocket launchers to strike the prison in Olenivka, a settlement controlled by the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic.
By Jim Heintz, Associated Press
By Johnson Lai, Huizhong Wu, Associated Press
By Jim Heintz, Associated Press
By Lindsay Maizland, Council on Foreign Relations
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