MSNBC host Joy Reid suggested on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin intentionally targeted WNBA star Brittney Griner for arrest and detainment because of her racial and sexual identity.
Russian authorities arrested Griner for drug possession after finding hash oil in her luggage in the country’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February 2022, and she reportedly pled guilty to drug charges in July of that year.
Reid said on “Morning Joe” that Griner’s status as a black American who is openly homosexual played a role in her arrest and captivity as Putin knew it would inflict “trauma” on the United States.
“To me, it’s sort of shocking to think about spending nearly a year far from home, wondering if you’ll ever get out. Because she was sentenced to nine years, nine and a half years incarceration for what, in this country, would amount to nothing, and for something that wasn’t even deliberate,” Reid said. “But I think the Putin regime understood that they had not just a black celebrity, a black queer celebrity, somebody who could be used internally as a pawn, somebody who they could sort of internally mock and hold hostage from the United States, knowing the trauma that it would cause back home.”
President Joe Biden’s administration orchestrated a prisoner swap where the U.S. sent Russia an arms dealer known as “The Merchant of Death” in return for Griner. She said the hash oil vape pen cartridge in her baggage that authorities arrested her for was by accident.
Griner has expressed disappointment that Paul Whelan, a former marine who is still detained in Russia, was not included in her prisoner swap.
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Last week, Russia arrested a US soldier, identified as Staff Sergeant Gordon Black, who was stationed in South Korea and was in the process of returning home to Texas when he allegedly made an unauthorized trip to Russia to visit a longtime girlfriend.
Staff Sergeant Black was arrested on May 2nd in Vladivostok, a strategic military and commercial hub in Russia’s Far East. The circumstances surrounding his detention remain murky, with officials stating that Black did not inform his unit of his plans to travel to Russia and did not receive any authorization to do so.
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