Everyone wants to know about the intricacies of prisoner swaps, all the details related to exchanges, whether on tarmacs of undisclosed airports or some other mysterious location, not to mention the secret negations to bring about prisoner exchanges. “Hunch is that a Brittney Griner trade would follow the same pattern,” said Dartmouth University hostage diplomacy fellow Danielle Gilbert. Gilbert likes to talk about the mechanics of prisoner swaps but she doesn’t take into account current political events that make a prisoner swap of six-foot-nine-inch Griner impossible. “This is now an established working process,” Gilbert said. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they drew from it again,” referring to the April 28 prisoner swap for 28-year-old ex-marine Trevor Reed, doing time in Russian jail for an alleged altercation with Russian police. Gilbert doesn’t take into account deteriorated U.S.-Russian relations.
Tossing everything known about prisoner swaps out the window,” President Joe Biden, 79, has made some incendiary remarks since the State Department managed to get Reed exchanged for a Russian prisoner in U.S. custody. Biden said March 26, that he didn’t think Putin should remain Russian president after the invasion of Ukraine. However Reed was in the pipeline, the pipeline no longer exists with Biden ramping up U.S. weapons exchanges to the Kiev government over the last six months. Biden as removed all the stops, giving Kiev Highly Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems [HIMARS], sophisticated long-range rockets system built by Lockheed-Martin. Biden has left nothing to imagination giving Ukraine unlimited cash and weapons to fight the Russian Federation. When Reed was released, Putin hadn’t yet realized that Biden opened up a proxy war against the Kremlin.
Unlike Reed or other prisoners in the past, Griner finds herself caught in a political vice, all because Biden has wrecked U.S.-Russian relations to the point of breaking relations off altogether. No matter who’s doing the negotiations for Griners’s release, Putin understands the state of war with the U.S. over Ukraine. Putin heard U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, 69, loud and clear when he said April 26 that the aim of the Pentagon was to degrade the Russian military to the point it could not longer wage war. If that’s not a declaration of war on Russia, then what is? As long as Biden fights a determined proxy war, using Ukrainian troops, to topple the Russian government, then Griner’s going to rot in prison. “You march yours across and we march ours across at the same time,” said Paul J. Springer, fellow at Foreign Police Institute, expert in prisoner exchanges,” ignoring the circumstances.
Talking about the logistics of prisoner swaps doesn’t come close to dealing wit the state of war between the U.S. and Russia, where Biden and his Defense Secretary made clear they seek to topple Putin’s government. In that atmosphere, how’s the Kremlin supposed to negotiate in good faith when the adversary looks to take down your government? Biden said Griner’s Aug. 4 sentence was “unacceptable, saying that “Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney,” antagonizing Putin. Biden knows that Brittney plead guilty to cannabis possession, facts that are not in dispute. Brittney told the Moscow judge that it was accidental that she took cannabis-laced vape-cartridges in her luggage, while, at the same time, showing the judge her Arizona cannabis prescription, making her cannabis treatment look like anything but accidental. Griner finds herself stuck in a possible Russian prison colony with no way out.
Every time Biden or his 59-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken say that Griner was “unlawfully detained,” it antagonizes Russian authorities, knowing that the 31-year-old WNBA star broke Russian drug laws. Kremlin officials are in the driver’s seat negotiating for Griner’s release, if for no other reason, the U.S. has almost no diplomatic relations with Russia. Blinken talks about speaking directly July 30 with 72-year-old Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Blinken discussed the Griner situation but admitted he hadn’t talked with Lavrov since before the Feb. 24 Ukraine invasion. Showing how bad Blinken’s relations with Lavrov, he sat a table Aug. 4 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Despite Griner’s situation, Blinken made no effort to speak on the sidelines of the conference in Phnom Penh. Without improved communitcation, Griner’s situation is hopeless.
Griner’s spouse, Cherelle, has tried to contract with the Richardson Center in New Mexico, specialized in hostage negotiation. Former New Mexico Gov., Secretary of Energy and U.N. Amb. Bill Richardson, tries to pull rabbits out of hit hat but recognized the obstacles with deteriorated U.S.-Russian relations. “There are a lot of government agencies that would be involved in the discussion,” former State Department foreign services officer David Salvo said. No one in the State Department or NGOs like the Richardson Center can change the abysmal state of U.S.-Russian relations. Unless Biden makes an urgent pivot on Ukraine, insisting that Kiev go to the peace table and resolve the conflict with Russia, there’s little behind-the-scenes hostage negotiators can do to get Griner out a Russian penal colony. All the hostage negotiation experts don’t take into account Biden’s proxy war against the Kremlin.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
