Brittney Griner met with U.S. Embassy officials in Moscow on Thursday, the first consular visit with Griner since early August.
The visit comes more than a week after a Russian court denied Griner’s appeal of her nine-year prison sentence for alleged narcotics possession and drug smuggling.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a tweet that the U.S. representatives “saw firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances.”
Price said the Biden administration continues pushing for the immediate release of Griner and Paul Whelan and “fair treatment for every detained American.” Whelan is an American sentenced to 16 years in Russia in 2020 on espionage-related charges that he and his family say are fabricated.
Griner is “doing as well as can be expected,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One as President Joe Biden flew to New Mexico.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and eight-time WNBA All-Star, was convicted in August after police said she brought cannabis-infused vape cartridges in her luggage to a Moscow airport in February. Griner’s February arrest came amid heightened tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At her trial, Griner admitted to having the cartridges in her luggage, but testified she packed them inadvertently in a haste to make her flight and had no criminal intent.
Her lawyers have called the punishment excessive.
“The verdict contains numerous defects and we hoped that the court of appeal would take them into consideration. We still think the punishment is excessive and contradicts the existing court practice,” Griner’s attorneys said after her appeal was denied.
In an interview earlier this week, Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, said she spoke with the U.S. Olympian a week before the appeal hearing and noted that her “mind is fading in here.”
“That was the complete end of it,” Cherelle Griner said of the denied appeal. “There is nothing more to expect from a legal standpoint.”
The U.S. has classified Griner and Whelan as wrongly detained and has been negotiating their release with Russia for months, but no deal has come to fruition.
Over the summer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to secure their release. The U.S. reportedly offered to exchange convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for the two Americans.
There have been no outward signs of progress in the negotiations since then, other than Russia cautioning the U.S. to conduct all prisoner swap negotiations “in silence under a tight lid on any information.”
Jean-Pierre said the White House continues to follow up on its “significant offer” to bring home Griner and Whelan “despite a lack of good faith negotiation by the Russians.”
“The U.S. government has continued to follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with Russians through all available channels,” the press secretary said. “This continues to be a top priority.”
In the absence of a prisoner swap, Griner will likely be moved soon to one of Russia’s network of inmate labor camps.
