Roger CarstensSpecial Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, CNN’s Dana Bash told Sunday’s State of the Union what went on during the prisoner swap that led to this Release of Brittney Griner from prison in Russia, where she has been held for the past 10 months for possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil. Griner was swapped for the convicted Russian arms dealer, Victor fight.

Griner immediately thanked the crew, who transported them home

“When she finally got on the US plane, I said, ‘Brittany, you must have been through a lot in the last 10 months. Here is your place. Please feel free to decompress. We give you your place’”, Carstens said to Bash.

“And she said, ‘Oh no. I’ve been in jail for 10 months now and I hear Russian, I want to talk. But first of all, who are these guys?’ And she walked right past me and walked up to every member of that crew, looked them in the eye, shook their hand and asked about them and got their names, made a personal connection with them. It was really unbelievable,” said Carstens. “And later, on an 18-hour flight, she probably spent 12 hours just talking, and we talked about everything under the sun.”

Carstens described Griner as “an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person but above all authentic,” adding that she appeared healthy and energetic during the trip.

Once the UAE transfer was complete and they were scheduled to board the plane to the US, Carstens told Griner, “On behalf of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, I am here to take over you.” home.”

“At this point we have to go through a bit more of the choreography to get it on the plane, which usually takes about three minutes,” said Carstens.

Carstens said that he and Griner spoke about their ordeal during the trip, though he declined to go into details.

More work to do

“But know this, even if…