US basketball champion Brittney Griner has been transferred to a prison colony in central Russia to serve a lengthy prison term for “drug trafficking”, her lawyers said on Thursday, according to AFP.
“Britney began serving her sentence at the IK-2 colony in Mordovia,” a region in central Russia known for its prisons and harsh climate, lawyers Maria Blagovolina and Oleksandr Boykov said, adding that they were able to visit their client earlier this week. .
US President Joe Biden said last week that he hoped his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, would be more willing to discuss a prisoner swap with the United States to get basketball star Brittney Griner out of a Russian prison, AFP reported.
In the summer, the Biden administration proposed a prisoner swap deal with Russia to secure her release as well as former US Marine Paul Whelan, but Moscow has yet to respond positively to the offer.
US and Russian intelligence chiefs met in Turkey on Monday, during which Washington reiterated its warning to Moscow against using nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine and raised questions about the fate of its citizens held in Russia, AFP reported.
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