this. we re hopeful with the efforts of the administration to keep pressing. they have said very clearly, they have shown very clearly that b.g. and other detainees, paul whealan, other detainees are a priority. we pray that they will keep pressing to make this a priority. and yes, before i lost you, you were talking about the diplomats being in the same at the same dinner. and i m just trusting that they ll have the continued conversations, productive conversations, to get b.g. home. this is day 168. it s time. it s time. the facts of this case really perhaps are not as they are as the court in russia is detailing them. they re really something different and enough is enough. we re ready for our sister b.g. to come home. have you spoken to chirele
mike? you know, tragic. i don t know any way to explain it that how could the alleged crime, it was very clearly a mistake, she was not smuggling drugs, nine and a half years seems like an outrageously long sentence for what she did, but not out of the normal for russia. you know, we ve talked about mark fogle before. and mark did a similar thing. he got 14 years for what he did. it s not surprising in terms of the russian system, but it most certainly is tragic and sad. and paul whealan has already been there for four years, serving a very long sentence, indeed, having been accused and convicted of spying. something that the u.s. says was a completely trumped up charge. so that is why as being in the category of being a hostage, basically, that s why he was put in with that category and is subject to this deal.
i know that everybody keeps talking about political pawn and politics, but i hope that that is far from this courtroom. i want to say again that i had no intent on breaking any russian laws. i had no intent, i did not conspire or plan to commit this crime. i hope that you take into account all the documentses, all the character list that everybody sent in on my behalf. the guilty verdict could pave the way for a high-stakes prisoner swap between the united states and russia, which would include greiner and american businessman and marine, former marine, paul whealan, in exchange for convicted russian arms dealer, viktor bout, serving time here in a prison in the u.s. joining me now is the former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul, and terry jackson, the executive director of the women s national basketball player s association. thanks so much for joining us. teri, first of all, you can see brittney, you ve heard her powerful appeal, her staple to
exchange for the release of paul whealan and brittney griner. frederick pleitgen live in moscow for us this morning. what s the latest on the back and forth here? good morning, john. well, actually, a couple of minutes ago, we just heard from sergey lavrov, the former minister of russia. so the two things that we can glean from what he said is that, first of all, the russians are really not keen to discuss any of this in public, and certainly don t seem to be in a rush to discuss any of this with secretary of state blinken either. of course, we know that the secretary of state came out a couple of days ago, and he said that he was going to speak with sergey lavrov in the next couple of days, which led many to believe that a call was actually already pretty much set and going to happen pretty soon. lavrov just poured cold water on that. he said that he found out about the u.s. s desire to have such a call while he was in africa, from secretary of state blinken, actually speaking there
loved ones home. as you point out, it s not just in russia, but given what we saw, the fact that trevor reed was released when tensions with russia feel like they re at an all-time high with war raging with ukraine, does that give you hope? oh, absolutely. it does. we were so pleased to see trevor home. i wished i could have been more celebratory on that wednesday when we had to find out that paul was not coming home. but i have to tell you, i can t explain just what it meant after all this time to see that there was a possibility of squun coming out of russia. and so, of course, now we re asking the administration to seize the moment. obviously the sky didn t fall in. a trade was affected, whether that s the same way paul comes home or not, we re not sure. we re just asking as i said, all the tools to be used, and in particular, i think before the