WNBA star Brittney Griner freed from Russian penal colony in U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange.
, but carried a heavy price — and left behind Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed for nearly four years in Russia on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government has said are baseless.
Biden's authorization to release a Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death" underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
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