WNBA star Brittney Griner transferred to Russian penal colony to serve 9-year sentence

Nov. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been transferred to a Russian penal colony to serve nine years of hard time after an appeals court upheld her sentence for drug smuggling last month.

Griner, who was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in February for having cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage, was reportedly moved to the lockup from a detention facility outside Moscow, where she had been jailed for the last nine months.

Griner's legal team issued a statement Wednesday, saying they were not informed of the WNBA star's exact "location or her final destination," however, they did expect a briefing from the Kremlin about her whereabouts later in the day.

Prisoner transfers in Russia can sometimes take up to several weeks to complete, with Russian authorities working to obfuscate the process throughout.

Since Griner's arrest, U.S. officials have continued to work diplomatic channels in an effort to free her, but so far there have been no signs of a breakthrough. The diplomatic stalemate has been further complicated by the war in Ukraine, which began Feb. 20 -- three days after Griner's arrest. Feeling helpless, Griner's family called on the Biden administration to act, asserting she was being held by the Russians as a bargaining chip in the ongoing conflict.

President Joe Biden has publicly blasted the whole situation as "sham justice" while vowing to "work tirelessly" and "pursue every possible avenue" to free Griner and Paul Whelan, another American jailed in Russia since 2018 on spying charges.

Officials say that winning Griner's release has become one of the administration's top priorities, and that Moscow only needed to respond to offers already on the table or to make an offer of their own.

"Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. "As the administration continues to work tirelessly to secure her release, the president has directed the administration to prevail on her Russian captors to improve her treatment and conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony."

Russian penal colonies are lockups similar to Soviet-era gulags where prisoners are regularly subjected to harsh conditions and propaganda.

Last Thursday, State Department officials at U.S. Embassy in Russia met with the 32-year-old Phoenix Mercury star to check on her well-being as they continue to push for her release.

"They saw firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Twitter.

In a recent interview, President Biden talked about broaching the subject to Russian President Vladimir Putin if the two leaders cross paths at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, later this month.

Following Griner's sentence in early August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Putin was "ready to discuss" the idea of the prisoner exchange, around the same time that the White House revealed it made a "substantial offer" to trade Griner and Whelan for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who remains jailed in the United States.