A prisoner exchange, common thing right? Well, potentially the most dangerous international  arms dealer who has been involved in numerous wars in exchange for an wnba star – not so common ay? Well that exact scenario has come into fruition – victor Bout a known terrorist has been released from American pantry in order to extract Britney Granger. Granger was convicted for possession of marijuana thus being sentenced to a 9 year sentence in Russia. Bout was arrested in 2008 in a sting operation and has been held in American penitentiary’s ever since. He was convicted of selling weapons to militant groups and conspiring to kill American citizens. A sportswoman and a terrorist and nowhere near in the same Caliber and it seems that Russia have easily had the better end of the deal – this questions the power of the Government of the United States as well as ; ultimately the final decision of Joe Biden. 
 

 

 

Biden had made the executive decision not to extract former u.s marine Paul Whelan – whom was sentenced in 2020 for espionage and was sentenced to 16 years prison. America have freed a man who is willingly to die for his country in exchange for a wnba star whom was sentenced due to her own mistake. Furthermore Granger openly hates America stating : “ I personally feel we shouldn’t play the national anthem during our season “ With the on going discussions of article 4 being triggered within NATO ; allowing a significant arms dealer to help participate could cause detrimental consequences. Biden is indirectly supporting the conflict between Ukraine and Russia by giving the green light between the prison exchange.


 

Paul whelan served as a beacon of American central intelligence and was more than likely contracted to work in Russia. He has held back government secrets and resisted any sort of indoctrination from Russia – for 4 years - yet no extraction has been reached for him. The White House claims that they didn’t have “ enough leverage “ to extract whelan. Consequently this caused a stir throughout social media with many patrons claiming Whelan should’ve been the one that should’ve been eligible to come home instead of Granger. Granger brother recently spoke out regarding the morale of Whelan : “ it has already been hard to combat compassion fatigue, to keep up Paul’s morale and help him survive as fewer people remember his plight, fewer people write to him, and he starts to worry about being forgotten.” Bidens administration beleve Whelan to be “wrongfully detained” and have been negotiating his release with the Kremlin for the past 4 years with no concrete break through.  Ultimately , many patrons on social media believe the pros or exchange was a political move seeing as Grimer comes from a minority and is part of the LQBTQ+ community so it was nothing more but a ploy to secure votes. Ultimately many people have been left dumbfounded with the outcome of the exchange and beleve thay Whelan should’ve been freed.