The Kremlin acknowledged for the first time Thursday that U.S. and Russian officials are in talks on a swap that would potentially free women’s basketball star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan from Russian jails.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of publicly revealing late last month that the Biden administration had proposed the prisoner swap, even as Ms. Griner was on her way to being sentenced to 9 1/2 years in jail by a Russian court after being caught with a vape with a small amount of cannabis as she entered the country.