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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Andrew Roth in Moscow and Joanna Walters in New York

Russia ‘ready to discuss’ prisoner swap but will resist pressure to free Brittney Griner

Brittney Griner United States Sergei Lavrov Russia Prison Joe Biden Viktor Bout Vladimir Putin
US basketball player Brittney Griner sits inside a defendant's cage in a court outside Moscow, Russia on Thursday.
The US basketball player Brittney Griner in court outside Moscow on Thursday, when she received a nine-and-a-half year prison sentence. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/EPA

Russia is ready to discuss a prisoner swap for imprisoned Americans, said its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, but added that the Kremlin would resist public pressure to free US basketball star Brittney Griner and others being held in Russian prisons.

Lavrov’s remarks came a day after Griner received a nine-year prison sentence on drug charges that were seen as a gambit to demand an exchange for high-profile Russians in prison in the US, including the arms trafficker Viktor Bout.

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