Paul Whelan Update as Brittney Griner Released From Prison

WNBA player Brittney Griner was freed from imprisonment in Russia on Thursday in a prisoner swap for a notorious arms dealer, but another American remains detained in the country after about four years.

Paul Whelan is a former U.S. Marine who was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Russian court on espionage charges in 2020, though he and his family have maintained that the charges against him are baseless, the Associated Press reported.

Griner was arrested in Russia in February this year for allegedly possessing cannabis oil when she arrived in Moscow. A Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison in August, and President Joe Biden has faced pressure for months to secure her release.

On Thursday, Biden acknowledged that Whelan was being wrongly detained and urged Russia to ensure that his health remained intact. He noted that Russia was treating Whelan's case differently from Griner's but said that he's still working to secure his release.

Whelan's family has urged the White House and media outlets to not forget about Whelan and Biden acknowledged that his family was likely having mixed emotions about Griner's release.

Griner is the second American detained by Russia whose release has been negotiated in recent months. In April, former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed was released in another prisoner exchange. He was arrested in Russia in 2019 for allegedly endangering and assaulting a Russian police officer, and then sentenced the next year to nine years in prison even though the U.S. and his family maintained that he was unjustly detained.

A Whelan family statement shared with Newsweek celebrated Griner's release.

"As the family member of a Russian hostage, I can literally only imagine the joy she will have, being reunited with her loved ones, and in time for the holidays," the statement read, which other news reports have directly attributed to his brother, David Whelan.

"There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed and for them to go home. The Biden Administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn't going to happen."

The family was notified in advance that Paul Whelan would not be included in the deal that freed Griner, according to the statement, which was not the case when Reed was freed in April. Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan's sister, previously told Newsweek after Reed's release that her family "felt a deep sense of betrayal and hurt" from the U.S. government when they were not informed that Paul Whelan wasn't included in the swap.

"It is so important to me that it is clear that we do not begrudge Ms. Griner her freedom," the new statement from David Whelan on Thursday read. "As I have often remarked, Brittney's and Paul's cases were never really intertwined. It has always been a strong possibility that one might be freed without the other."

It added that the family is "still devastated" and that it was unfathomable "how Paul will feel when he learns."

"How do you continue to survive, day after day, when you know that your government has failed twice to free you from a foreign prison?" the statement said. "I can't imagine he retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point. It's clear that the U.S. government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. And so Paul will remain a prisoner until that changes."

David Whelan also said during an interview with CNN on Thursday morning that Griner's release was "great news," but added that it wasn't clear what the future holds for his brother.

A lawyer for Paul Whelan told NBC News Thursday that an exchange for the detained former U.S. Marine was expected to take place in the next month or two.

Update 12/8/22, 10:30 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.

Update 12/8/22, 10:05 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and a statement from the Whelan family.