Enjoy the minute Brittney Griner was exchanged for Russian arms seller Viktor Bout on a UAE airport tarmac

• See the minute Brittney Griner was swapped for Russian arms supplier Viktor Bout.

• The two prisoners were exchanged on a UAE airport tarmac, ending Griner’s approximately 10-thirty day period detainment in Russia.

• In a 2nd online video, Griner claimed she was “joyful” to be getting on a airplane and going dwelling.

Online video released by Russian news agency Tass reveals the minute Brittney Griner was swapped for Russian arms seller Viktor Bout on the tarmac at an airport in the UAE.

The movie displays a group of 3 males walking alongside Griner, who is sporting short hair and a purple shirt. ESPN’s TJ Quinn reviews that the WNBA celebrity cut her signature dreadlocks by her individual violition simply because “she did not want to offer with it during a Russian winter.”

In the clip, the trio, plus Griner, strategies Bout together with a further suited gentleman. One of the gentlemen with Griner then shakes fingers with Bout and pulls him in for a hug. Griner then walks off with the American gentleman who had been escorting Bout.

Yet another movie shared by Russian information outlet RT chronicles Griner’s day, beginning with her signing release papers and subsequent her as she is pushed to a aircraft and receives on.

“What is your temper?” A voice is listened to inquiring Griner.

“Content,” she responded, chuckling and smiling.

The prisoner swap was introduced Thursday early morning, with President Joe Biden tweeting that Griner “is protected. She is on a plane. She is on her way property,” at 8:14 a.m. nearby time.

The Biden administration initially proposed the prisoner trade in June to provide the basketball celebrity again to the US. For most of Griner’s detainment, the US attempted to negotiate a two-for-one particular swap involving the release of equally the basketball star and fellow wrongfully detained American Paul Whelan.

But securing the 52-calendar year-old’s flexibility has proved far tougher than releasing other wrongfully detained People. A previous US Marine-turned-safety executive, Whelan was arrested at a Moscow lodge in December 2018 in excess of suspicions that he was an American spy.

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He was subsequently convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 many years in Russian jail, with the likelihood of serving time at a labor camp. And due to the fact of that conviction, “for completely illegitimate good reasons, Russia is dealing with Paul’s case in different ways than Brittney’s,” as Biden mentioned Thursday.

Griner had been sentenced to 9 many years in a Russian penal colony immediately after getting arrested in a Moscow airport in February for carrying vape cartridges that contains cannabis oil in her baggage. She was billed with the huge-scale transportation of drugs and moved to a Russian jail soon following, prior to sitting down for a demo in Russia.

Bout, on the other hand, was 10 many years into his 25-yr sentence in the US for conspiring to supply “material assistance” to a terrorist business, promising to offer them with anti-plane missiles, and participating in a plot to destroy People and US officers.

He was 1st arrested in Thailand in 2008 — but not for the superior-stakes trafficking functions that served as inspiration for various movies, documentaries, and textbooks — and his nickname: “The Service provider of Loss of life.” In its place, Bout was caught in a Drug Enforcement Company sting procedure. American officers lured the elusive arms distributor to interact with purported reps of a Colombian guerilla team, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He provided to offer weapons to the rebels, even with the comprehension that the supplies could have been applied to kill Americans. But even so, the Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin — a then-federal judge for the US District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York who dominated on the case — believed her required minimum 25-year sentence “was way too higher in the to start with area.”

“It was necessary. I experienced no discretion,” Scheindlin instructed Insider. “I experienced to give the sentence I gave.”

Continue to, the documented prisoner swap offer had drawn some criticism, like from former main of operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration Michael Braun, who wrote in a Overseas Policy column that releasing Bout would pose a “grave threat” to nationwide security and be a “slap in the confront” of regulation enforcement who risked their life to arrest him.

Previous President Donald Trump also slammed the deal over the summer, contacting Griner a “perhaps spoiled man or woman” who was “loaded up with prescription drugs.”

Even with the criticism, which a hostage negotiation professional explained to Insider can be explained by scientific theories, the US and Russia had been ready to orchestrate a deal to swap Griner for Bout on Thursday.

Examine the first report on Insider