The Russians Have Taken Brittney Griner Hostage in Moscow?

 This is not a good thing, diplomatically, especially if they imprison her now:

The Russian Federal Customs Service said Saturday that its officials had detained an American basketball player after finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow.

The Customs Service said in a statement that the player had won two Olympic gold medals with the United States, but it did not release the player’s name. The Russian news agency TASS, citing a law enforcement source, identified the player as Brittney Griner, a seven-time W.N.B.A. All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury. Griner, 31, won gold medals with the U.S. women’s national basketball team in 2021 and 2016.

The Customs Service released a video of a traveler at the airport who appeared to be Griner, wearing a mask and black sweatshirt, going through security. The video showed an individual removing a package from the traveler’s bag.

The screening at the airport occurred in February, according to the Customs Service, raising the possibility that Griner has been in custody for at least several days.

Joe Biden... where are you?

For the past week, WNBA players in Russia have been leaving the country in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. A WNBA spokesperson on Saturday said that, other than Griner, all of the league's players who were competing in either Russia or Ukraine this winter are now out of those countries.

"We are aware of the situation in Russia concerning one of our members, Brittney Griner. Our utmost concern is BG's safety and well-being," the WNBA Players' union said in a statement to ESPN on Saturday. "On behalf of The 144, we send our love and support. We will continue to closely monitor and look forward to her return to the U.S." 

The Russian Federal Customs Service on Saturday alleged it searched luggage believed to belong to Griner and found vape cartridges that contained oil derived from cannabis -- a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.  

ADDED:  Here's an editorial Griner wrote back in 2017 about being harrassed as a lesbian player.  I hear that doesn't play well yet in Russia, that kind of openness can bring you trouble.  I bet she's being treated well in captivity, but it sounds like she has lost her freedom to leave and might be charged with the drug crimes.

As an Olympian, Russia surely has public-relations reasons to play up the arrest.  She's a bargaining chip, a human bargaining chip, like so many civilians now.  War should always be a last resort.  Anybody can run guns, the true intellectual pursuit is finding the path to peace that everyone can live with:  military leaders, business men, politicos and regular people alike.

We appear to be nowhere near that now.  War is as routine as ... mowing the law.  But it gets complicated when you involve true global superpowers with nuclear weapons, remember.