On Wednesday afternoon, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. had offered Russia a “substantial proposal” aimed at securing the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan.
Now the question is whether it will be enough to bring the two jailed Americans home.
Will the Russians accept a 2-for-1 trade for a notorious arms trafficker who for years has been atop the Kremlin’s prisoner exchange wish list? Or will they seek to extract more concessions from the U.S. than the release of Viktor Bout?
Yahoo Sports spoke with a handful of experts on hostage diplomacy and Russian foreign policy on Thursday to assess how the negotiations might proceed from here.