Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a direct prisoner swap with convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Big win for US President Joe Biden, but also for President Vladimir Putin. Who got the shorter end of the stick? On the one hand, the Biden administration could hardly afford the bad optics of allowing a prominent Black female athlete to be locked up in a Russian penal colony for nine years. Still, the US president can say he kept his promise to Griner's family to do everything in his power to get her out of Russia. On the other hand, Putin traded someone who got busted for just carrying a CBD vial in her luggage for someone who deserved to be called the "Merchant of Death." What's more, the Kremlin got Bout without having to give up Paul Whelan, a former US marine who's been behind bars in Russia since 2018 for alleged spying. Also, there are plenty of Americans locked up under awful conditions in other countries around the world.
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Right now, streaming live from Munich: Net Zero for Global Security? Geopolitics of Energy Transition and Hydrogen Trade
Join us via free livestream at the Energy Security Hub at BMW Pavilion Herbert Quandt at the Munich Security Conference and watch our panel on “Geopolitics of Energy Transition and Hydrogen Trade” in cooperation with the German Federal Office and H2-Diplo. The global shift to net zero is no longer just an environmental imperative – it’s reshaping international security and geo-economic dynamics. As new clean energy trade routes emerge, major economies are jockeying for clean industry leadership, navigating critical resource dependencies, supply chain resilience, and infrastructure security. Following this panel, starting at 18:30 (CET) / 12:30 (ET), don’t miss the opportunity to watch the closing keynote by William Chueh, director of Precourt Institute for Energy and associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, on “Energy Transition: Speed & Scale.” For these and other forward-thinking panels and discussions in the next two days, register here.
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