Brittney Griner speaks to reporters for the first time since leaving Russia

Mrs. Griner is preparing for his upcoming season of basketball in the W.N.B.A. She called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who US officials say is being wrongfully detained by Russia.

VideoGriner, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, will return to the field on May 19 for the 2023 W.N.B.A. season.CreditCredit...Jeenah Moon/Reuters

PHOENIX — Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star who became the center of a geopolitical showdown between the United States and Russia last year, is expected to speak with reporters on Thursday for the first time since his release in December in a prisoner swap. /p>

Mrs. Griner, 32, had planned to speak to reporters as his team, the Phoenix Mercury, prepares for the start of its season on May 19, and as the United States and Russia clash over detention from another American, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. , who is charged with espionage.

Mercury officials said Ms. Griner would not discuss her time in Russia at the press conference. She called for the release of Mr. Gershkovich and others classified as wrongfully detained by the US government.

She was arrested after customs officials in an airport near Moscow found a small amount of a marijuana concentrate in vape cartridges in her luggage in February 2022. In May, the US State Department said she had been wrongfully detained. She and Mr. Gershkovich became the latest in a line of US citizens detained by Moscow on what US officials said were questionable charges.

A Russian court convicted her of smuggling drugs, and in August Ms Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. She was released in a prisoner exchange in December; Viktor Bout, an arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death, is sent back to Russia. He was convicted in 2011 on charges of conspiracy to kill US citizens. Ms. Griner and Mr. Bout passed each other on a tarmac in the United Arab Emirates, site of the exchange.

Mr. Gershkovich, 31, was arrested by Russian security services in late March and charged with espionage in mid-April, a charge his employer and US officials strongly deny. While Mr. Gershkovich was able to meet with Russian lawyers, the State Department repeatedly asked Russian authorities to grant consular access.

He is held in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, a facility where detainees are held in solitary confinement with rare visits from lawyers. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov suggested this week that there was the possibility of a prisoner swap that included Mr. Gershkovich, similar to Mrs. Griner's trade for Mr. Bout.

< p class="css- at9mc1 evys1bk0">At a press conference at the United Nations, Mr. Lavrov said that Mr. Gershkovich and another American prisoner detained in Russia, Paul Whelan, had been arrested "as they committed a crime, received material" containing state secrets.

Ms. Griner said this month that she planned to write a memoir about her detention in Russia that she hoped would raise awareness about those wrongfully detained. The book, due out next year...