Rumors

Janis Timma has committed suicide. His body was found at the entrance of a residential building in the center of Moscow, arriving emergency services confirmed to the Russian news agency TASS on Tuesday morning. The preliminary cause of death was ruled as suicide. Earlier reports by several Russian outlets noted a phone next to the corpse and linked his death to an attempt to reconcile with his ex-wife Anna Sedokova. However, the investigation by local authorities is ongoing. He was 32.

EuroHoops.net

WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way back to the United States, President Biden announced Thursday. Moscow released the athlete in a swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to two senior administration officials and a separate statement from Russia’s foreign ministry. President Biden approved the release of Bout, commuting his 25-year prison sentence, one of the U.S. officials said.

Washington Post

Griner had been in Russian custody since her arrest at an airport near Moscow in February, when she was accused of entering with vape cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage, which is illegal there. Her lawyers said it was prescribed as part of treatment for chronic pain and other conditions.

Washington Post

The penal colony where Griner was transferred is far from Moscow, which was the desired location for many of Brittney’s advocates as it would have enabled her easier access to her attorneys. Conditions are very bleak in the penal colony, known as IK-2 in the town of Yavas according to a Reuters interview with Olga Romanova from the prison rights group Russia Behind Bars. The women there get punished. They punish the unit that’s at fault, when they haven’t worked hard enough, for example; when they don’t take part properly in (prison) activities; when there’s some kind of incident where they don’t do some exercise the right way. Someone refuses to go to work. That kind of thing. And when they punish the unit, they don’t get any hot water. And not for an hour or two, but for a few days.

SB Nation

Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage negotiations who has worked to secure the releases of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, visited Moscow this week and held meetings with Russian leaders, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night.

Washington Post

Russia confirmed Thursday for the first time that negotiations between Washington and Moscow on a prisoner exchange are underway, after the United States proposed a deal to release WNBA star Brittney Griner and another American prisoner, Paul Whelan. The Russian Foreign Ministry said talks are underway via a channel set up by President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin when they met in Geneva in June last year.

Washington Post

Malika Andrews: ESPN News Services: Russian prosecutors have asked a court outside Moscow to sentence Brittney Griner to 9½ years in prison on cannabis possession charges.

Twitter

Griner, who was detained in February at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport on Feb. 17, told the court that she packed the vape cartridges accidentally and did not intend to break Russian law. "I'd like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn't want to break the law," Griner told the judge in English, which was then translated into Russian for the court.

ESPN

The start date for WNBA star Brittney Griner's trial in Moscow has been set for July 1, more than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for cannabis possession. The date was revealed Monday after Griner, 31, appeared in a Moscow court for a preliminary hearing ahead of trial. The Phoenix Mercury center was also ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial.

NBC

A preliminary hearing for WNBA star Brittney Griner will be held in Moscow on Monday morning, her lawyer, Alexander Boikov, confirmed to ABC News. Griner was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Russia on Feb. 17 after she was accused of carrying vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in Russia. The U.S. State Department said Griner was "wrongfully detained" by Russia, which allows the U.S. to negotiate her release.

ABC News

Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner was reportedly arrested at an airport in Moscow more than three weeks ago after the WNBA player was allegedly found with hashish oil vape cartridges in her luggage. On Tuesday, Russian State TV revealed the first image of the detained Griner, in a video shared by CNN.

Clutch Points

Daniel Hackett is leaving Russia, while Kevin Pangos has not even traveled to Moscow since signing a deal last week, according to Mundo Deportivo. The reason behind these decisions is the outgoing war in Ukraine.

BasketNews

Sam Dekkker: Wild day so far. Woke up to a call that international flights are going to be shutdown and have to get to airport ASAP. Currently about to board to Moscow and then hopefully to Istanbul and then back to The States tomorrow. Crazy circumstances but hoping it goes smoothly!

Twitter

The Russian national men’s basketball team arrived at the training camp in Novogorsk on July 22, outside Moscow, for the 2019 FIBA World Cup and Mozgov was on the national squad’s roster. "I had no contacts with the national team’s administration or the Russian Basketball Federation in the recent days and, therefore, was unable to announce my inability to join the national squad for the upcoming 2019 FIBA World Cup," Mozgov told TASS.

TASS Russian News Agency