Brittney Griner lands back in the US after Viktor Bout exchange

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Brittney Griner is back on US soil.

The WNBA star landed at San Antonio’s Kelly Field Air Force Base around 5:40 a.m. ET following her release to US officials in a prisoner swap for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in the United Arab Emirates.

Griner and three other people were seen getting off the Gulfstream G550 corporate jet, which landed at Kelly Field after a flight from the United Arab Emirates via Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The athlete — who was wearing basketball shoes, leggings and a hat as she emerged from the plane — was in “very good spirits” upon touching back down in her home state of Texas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

“Our team that flew back with her and met her on the ground tell us that she was in very, very good spirits when she got off the plane, and appeared to be obviously in good health,” Kirby said on the “Today” show.

“But we want to make sure, which is why we’re going to get her over [to] that treatment facility and have her have all the access she needs to health care workers, just to make sure that she’s OK,” he added.

Special presidential envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens, who traveled with Griner, confirmed her arrival on Twitter.

“So happy to have Brittney back on U.S. soil. Welcome home BG!” he wrote.

Three white Ford Transit vans with US government plates pulled out of Kelly Field at 5:48 a.m., an hour and 15 minutes after Griner’s jet landed on US soil.

The vans drove in convoy from Kelly Field to Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, entering through the Walters Street Gate at 6:06 a.m.

Griner, who spent 10 months in a Russian women’s prison, is expected to undergo an extensive physical and mental medical evaluation at Brooke Army Medical Center, which is located on the base, KENS5 reported.

Dr. Ralph Riviello, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, told the news outletthat doctors will look for anemia, electrolyte imbalances and infections she may be suffering from. Medical professionals will also identify any injuries she may have sustained while she was incarcerated.

Within a few days, Riviello said, a “multi-disciplinary team” will likely conduct a deeper assessment of Griner’s experience locked up abroad.

“(They would seek) more details about what happened to them during their incarceration and what they may have endured. Was there any physical violence? Was there any torture? Was there psychological torture or manipulation?” he told the outlet.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the US is ready to provide Griner with whatever she needs, if she requests it.

“She may seek the assistance that the US is going to provide, and we are going to make all of that available to her. How long she takes advantage of that assistance, that is a question for Brittney Griner, it is a question for Cherelle [Griner, Brittney’s wife]. But it is going to be an ongoing conversation we have with them,” Price said on MSNBC.

The 32-year-old Phoenix Mercury center was detained at a Moscow airport in February for carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia.

She was arrested just one week before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, leading to speculation that she was kept as a pawn to use as leverage against the US.

Griner, who claimed she had accidentally packed the cannabis oil in her luggage, pleaded guilty to drug charges and was sentenced to nine years in a forced labor camp in Mordovia.

Photos released by the Russian news agency TASS revealed the tiny cot the 6-foot-9, eight-time All-Star was forced to sleep on for months at Women’s Penal Colony No. 2 in Mordovia, Russia, while US officials scrambled to negotiate her return home.

Griner can be seen wearing green prisoner clothes with her hair cropped short — leaving little by which to recognize her aside from her towering frame. Other photos show the dreary meals she was forced to eat and the basketball player going to work.

Following her medical evaluation, Griner will return to her 3,000-square-foot property in Arizona, where she will have plenty of time and space to stretch out.

Critics blasted the government’s decision to swap Griner for Bout — an international arms dealer also known as the “Merchant of Death.” 

Bout was convicted in 2011 for conspiring to kill Americans, among other charges, by supplying weapons to the FARC narco-terror group based in Colombia. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Left out of the deal was Paul Whelan, an ex-Marine who has been held in Russia for nearly four years on espionage charges. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the US tried to negotiate for Whelan, but the Russians wouldn’t budge.

Whelan’s family supported the deal to bring Griner home, calling it “the right decision” rather than waiting for another opportunity that might never come.

Marc Fogel, who, like Griner, was arrested over a small amount of marijuana in his luggage, also remains incarcerated in Russia, serving a 14-year sentence.

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