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Cherelle Griner with US President Biden
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
US basketball star Brittney Griner spent ten months in Russian custody.
Then she was released in exchange with the notorious arms dealer Wiktor But.
Her wife Cherelle Griner was overjoyed after the athlete returned to the USA.
She posted a series of photos and a longer statement on Instagram.
"My heart healed yesterday thanks to the collective efforts of MANY!" she wrote.
Taking care of each other is »humanity in its purest form«.
The couple will now go on a journey "to heal our mind, body and spirit".
A long list of aides followed, including three congressmen and actress Whoopi Goldberg.
"All families deserve to be united," said Griner.
"Let's continue to use our hands, voices, platforms and resources to bring Paul and all Americans home," she said.
US President Biden announced on Thursday (local time) that the US had obtained the athlete's release.
The American Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia for almost four years and to whom Griner refers in her post, has not yet been replaced.
Whelan has been jailed in Russia amid espionage charges that both his family and the US have dismissed as baseless.
The negotiations continue.
The long linguistic isolation apparently made things difficult for the athlete during detention.
On the return flight, Griner spent 12 hours out of 18 talking, according to her companions.
It was about her time in a Russian penal camp and the months in captivity, said the US special representative for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens.
He got the impression that Griner was "an intelligent, passionate, sympathetic, humble, interesting person" and was also patriotic.
Griner was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport shortly before the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine because so-called vape cartridges with cannabis oil were found in her luggage.
She was subsequently sentenced to nine years in prison for drug possession.
Her appeal failed in October.
At the beginning of November, it was said that she would be transferred to a penal camp.
After her arrival in the USA, Griner did her first light basketball training in Texas.
Before her incarceration, she had played for the US national team.
However, it is still unclear what her sporting future looks like.
After his liberation, the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout unsurprisingly backed Putin's war policy and the attack on Ukraine.
"If I had the opportunity and the necessary skills, I would go (to the front) as a volunteer," said the 55-year-old in a stream on the Russian state broadcaster RT.
He never understood why Russia didn't start the war earlier, he said.
According to But, he always had a portrait of Putin hanging in his cell.
The Russian, known as the "dealer of death," was sentenced to a total of 25 years in prison in the United States for arms trafficking and conspiracy to murder.
Moscow has repeatedly tried to get Bout released, who is said to have links to the Russian secret service.
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